CO 

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o 


LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Class 


BUST   OF   SAMUEL   JONES   TILDEN.— BY  KITSON 
Circa  1884 


THE   LIFE 


OF 


SAMUEL    J.   TILDEN 


BY 


JOHN  BIGELOW,  LL.D. 

AUTHOR     OF      "  LIFE     OF     BENJAMIN     FRANKLIN  "      "  LIFE      OF     WILLIAM 

CULLEN  BRYANT  "  "  FRANCE  AND  THE  CONFEDERATE  NAYY  " 

EDITOR    OF    "  WRITINGS    AND    SPEECHES    OF 

SAMUEL  j.  TILDEN"  ETC. 


Chacun  de  ses  malheurs  semble  une  meprise  ou  une 
enignie  jusqiCa  ce  qu'on  prononce  le  nom  deses  ennemis 

ST.  MARC  GIRAEDIN.  Art.  "  Arnaud  " 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES 

VOLUME  II.— 1877-1887 


NEW    YORK 
HARPER   &   BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

1895 


Copyright,  1895,  by  JOHN  BIGELOW. 
All  rights  reserved. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

Page 

Presidential  canvass  of  1876  —  Assailable  points  of  Grant's  administra 
tion —  Popular  majority  for  Tilden  and  Hendricks — Inception  of 
the  conspiracy  to  defeat  the  popular  choice  —  Senator  Barnum, 
JohnC.  Reid,  and  the  "New  York  Times"  —  William  E.  Chand 
ler's  break-of-day  despatches  —  Troops  ordered  to  Florida  —  Presi 
dent  Grant's  despatch  to  General  Sherman  —  Foul  operations  of 
conspirators  in  Florida  —  How  rewarded  by  President  Hayes  — 
General  Barlow 1-32 

CHAPTER  II 

The  conspirators'  operations  in  Louisiana — William  Pitt  Kellogg  — 
Visiting  statesmen  in  New  Orleans  —  The  composition  and  opera 
tions  of  the  Louisiana  Returning  Board  —  Garfield  —  Sherman  — 
Anderson  —  Jewett  —  Eliza  Pinkston  —  Fraudulent  registration  — 
The  reward  of  the  conspirators 33-56 

CHAPTER  III 

The  electoral  count  of  1877  —  Senator  Morton's  scheme  —  Tilden's 
history  of  the  presidential  counts  —  President  Grant  concedes 
Tilden's  election  —  Electoral  commission  created  —  Disapproved 
of  by  Tilden  —  Refuses  to  raffle  for  the  presidency  —  Horatio  Sey 
mour's  speech  before  the  New  York  electors  —  Dr.  Franklin's 
advice  to  his  son  —  The  Florida  case  —  The  Louisiana  case  — 
The  Oregon  case — Conflicting  decisions  of  the  commission  — 
The  commission  for  sale  —  The  forged  certificates  from  Lou 
isiana —  Decision  of  the  commission  condemned  by  the  House  o$ 
Representatives  —  Letter  of  Charles  Francis  Adams  —  Tilden's 
reply  —  Protest  of  the  Democratic  minority  of  the  electoral  com 
mission  —  Thurman  and  Bayard  —  James  Russell  Lowell  .  .  57-118 

CHAPTER  IV 

Revisits  Europe  —  Blarney  Castle — St.  Patrick's  Cathedral  —  Tom 
Moore's  birthplace  —  The  cabman's  criticism  —  Lord  Houghton's 


208129 


iv  CONTENTS 

Page 

story  —  General  Grant's  reception  in  London  —  Tilden  elected  an 
honorary  member  of  the  Cobden  Club  —  Visits  the  home  of  his 
ancestry  —  Arrives  in  Paris  —  Attends  the  funeral  of  Thiers  — 
Talk  with  Gambetta  —  Louis  Blanc's  account  of  his  visit  to  Louis 
Napoleon  when  a  prisoner  at  Ham,  and  of  the  loss  and  recovery  of 
his  voice  in  London  —  The  story  of  General  Cavaignac's  brother 
and  mother  —  Tilden's  exposure  in  recrossing  the  channel  —  Re 
turns  to  the  United  States  —  The  "  Indian  Corn  Speech"  .  119-144 

CHAPTER    V 

s  The  trials  and  temptations  of  a  bachelor  millionaire  —  Proposals  of 

marriage  in  verse  and  prose 145-167 

CHAPTER    VI 

The  cipher  despatches  —  Tilden's  address  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States  in  regard  to  them  —  His  examination  by  a  congressional 
committee  —  A  calumnious  report  corrected  —  Letter  to  Senator 
Kernan 168-223 

CHAPTER    VII 

Income-tax  returns  —  New  persecutions  by  the  administration  —  The 
capitulation  of  the  administration  —  The  ignominious  end  of  seven 
years'  persecution  —  Letters  of  Edwards  Pierrepont,  special  coun 
sel  for  the  government ;  S.  L.  Woodford,  United  States  District 
Attorney ;  Green  B.  Raum,  United  States  Commissioner  of  Inter 
nal  Revenue ;  Charles  J.  Folger,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury ;  and 
Benjamin  H.  Brewster,  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States,  224-260 

CHAPTER  VIII 

The  purchase  of  Graystone  —  Dinner  to  J.  S.  Morgan  —  Mr.  Tilden 
rebukes  third-term  candidates  for  the  presidency  —  Withdraws 
from  public  life  —  Letter  to  Mr.  Manning  declining  the  presidential 
nomination  in  1880  —  The  Cincinnati  convention  —  Urged  for  a  re- 
nomination  in  1884 —  Second  letter  of  declension  ....  261-288 

CHAPTER    IX 

Tilden's  relations  to  the  new  President  — Senator  Garland  a  suitor  —  Let 
ters  to  Manning  —  Tilden's  and  Jefferson's  views' of  civil  service  — 
Harbor  defences  — Letter  to  Carlisle  —  Tilden's  friends  proscribed 
at  Washington  —  Letter  to  Watterson  —  George  W.  Julian  — 
Tilden  discourages  his  nephew  and  namesake  from  embarking  in 
politics  —  R.  B.  Minturn  —  Manning's  illness  and  retirement  from 
the  treasury  —  History  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  —  The  Broadway 


CONTENTS  v 

Page 

railroad  —  Advice  to  Governor  Hill  against  the  proposed  enlarge 
ment  of  the  Erie  canal  —  Favors  the  bill  for  an  international  park 
and  for  the  protection  of  the  Adirondack  forests  ....  289-34G 

CHAPTER    X 

Tilden's  last  days  —  The  books  he  read — His  death — Whittier's  ele 
giac  verses  —  The  funeral  —  Mr.  Tilden's  will  —  The  validity  of 
the  Tilden  will  contested  —  The  trustees  of  the  Tilden  Trust  pur 
chase  a  half-interest  in  the  estate  —  James  C.  Carter's  argument  — 
Provision  made  by  the  Legislature  and  afterwards  withdrawn,  for 
the  Tilden  Free  Library 347-371 

CHAPTER    XI 
Conclusion  372-394 


APPENDIX    A 

Address  of  the  minority  of  the  electoral  commission  of  1877      .     397-403 

APPENDIX    B 

Party  sentiment  in  favor  of  Tilden's  renomination  for  the  presidency 

in  1884     404-410 

APPENDIX    C 

Miss  Gould's  list  of  the  books  read  to  Mr.  Tilden  during  the  last  years 

of  his  life 411-419 

APPENDIX    D 

Last  will  and  testament  of  Samuel  Jones  Tilden 420-431 

APPENDIX    E 
Act  to  Incorporate  the  Tilden  Trust 432-433 

INDEX 435 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


BUST  OF   SAMUEL  ,T.  TILDEX Frontispiece 

GRAYSTONE Facing  p.  262 

SAMUEL  J.  TILDEN   ON   THE  POUCH   AT   GRAYSTOXE    ....  "          310 

THE  PROPOSED  TILDEX   TRUST   LIBRARY  .  "          368 


OF 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


THE  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  J,  TILDEN 


CHAPTER   I 

Presidential  canvass  of  1876  —  Assailable  points  of  Grant's  administration  — 
Popular  majority  for  Tilden  and  Hendricks  —  Inception  of  the  conspir 
acy  to  defeat  the  popular  choice  —  Senator  Barnum,  John  C.  Reid,  and 
the  "New  York  Times "  —  William  E.  Chandler's  break-of-day  de 
spatches  —  Troops  ordered  to  Florida  —  President  Grant's  despatch  to 
General  Sherman  —  Foul  operations  of  conspirators  in  Florida — How 
rewarded  by  President  Hayes  —  General  Barlow. 

THE  presidential  canvass  of  1876  was  one  of  exceptional 
bitterness.  The  public  officers  of  the  party  in  control  of 
the  federal  government  had  been  charged  by  the  press  and 
on  the  platform,  by  prominent  and  responsible  Republicans 
as  well  as  by  the  opposition,  not  only  with  gross  neglect  of 
official  duty,  but  with  official  conduct  for  much  of  which 
the  laws  provided  the  most  degrading  penalties.  They 
charged,  among  other  things,  that  during  the  whole  eight 
years  of  General  Grant's  administration  the  ordinary  ex 
penses  of  the  government,  exclusive  of  pensions  and  inter 
est  on  the  public  debt,  had  been  increased  at  the  inordinate 
rate  of  $75,000,000  a  year. 

That  its  influence  had  been  exerted  to  procure  its  inser 
tion  in  the  bill  that  was  to  double  the  President's  salary, 
and,  as  an  inducement  for  its  passage,  a  provision  that  the 
increase  of  pay  which  Congress  had  already  awarded  the 
members  should  date  back  to  the  beginning  of  their  term, 
by  which  means  they  were  to  receive  about  $1,000,000  of 
back  pay. 

That  in  a  single  month  in  1874  one  million  gallons  of 

VOL.  II.  —  1 


2  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

whiskey  were  sold  in  St.  Louis  which  had  not  paid  the  law 
ful  tax,  amounting  to  $700,000,  through  the  collusion  of 
officials  attached  to  the  Treasury  Department,  who  were 
tried  and  convicted  of  sharing  in  the  plunder.  As  St. 
Louis  was  but  one,  and  by  no  means  the  most  considerable, 
of  the  cities  in  which  large  distilleries  were  in  operation,  it 
was  estimated  and  charged  that  from  these  frauds  alone, 
which  had  been  going  on  for  many  years,  the  loss  to  the 
treasury  had  been  not  less  than  $15,000,000  a  year.  O. 
C.  Babcock,  the  President's  private  secretary,  and  one 
Avery,  the  chief  clerk  of  the  treasury,  were  both  indicted 
for  participating  in  these  robberies.  Avery  was  convicted, 
but  to  save  the  President's  private  secretary  from  the  State- 
prison,  and  for  other  reasons  which  it  is  too  painful  even 
to  suggest,  Mr.  Henderson,  the  lawyer  selected  by  the 
Attorney-General  for  the  prosecution  of  these  rogues,  was 
displaced  at  the  special  instance  of  the  President,  as  was 
publicly  charged,  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  never  denied. 

That  the  financial  agency  of  our  government  abroad  was 
taken  from  the  old  and  responsible  banking-house  of  the 
Barings,  of  London,  who  had  held  it  through  a  long  suc 
cession  of  administrations,  and  was  given  to  the  house  of 
Clews  &  Co.,  of  which  one  partner  was  an  Englishman,  but 
then  residing  in  New  York,  and  the  other  a  Swede,  who  at 
one  time  was  Swedish  consul  in  New  York,  from  which 
position  he  had  been  relieved  at  the  instance  of  our  govern 
ment  for  blockade-running  during  the  war.  To  secure 
their  appointment  it  was  charged  that  Clews  &  Co.  agreed, 
in  writing,  to  give  a  quarter,  or  some  other  portion,  of 
their  profits  to  one  Cheever,  a  notorious  familiar  at  the 
White  House ;  another  quarter  to  one  James  A.  Van 
Buren,  which  name  subsequently  proved  to  be  a  pseudo 
nym,  and  the  appropriation  to  it  was  understood  to  repre 
sent  a  gratification  to  some  personage  too  important  to  be 
named ;  and  an  eighth  to  a  brother-in-law  of  the  Presi 
dent.  It  is  not  surprising  that,  with  so  many  divisions,  the 


GRANT'S    ADMINISTRATION  3 

dividends  of  Clews  &  Co.  were  disappointing,  and  that 
they  soon  failed  and  went  into  bankruptcy,  debtors  to  the 
government  for  a  large  amount.1 

That  the  soldiers  of  the  United  States  were  ordered  to 
take  possession  of  the  legislative  halls  of  Louisiana  in 
1874,  and  drive  from  the  House  those  Representatives  who 
were  opposed  to  the  usurpation  of  the  executive  chair  by 
William  Pitt  Kellogg,  the  Jonathan  Wild  of  Louisiana  pol 
itics,  who  had  been  placed  in  it  by  the  aid  of  a  drunken 
and  corrupt  judge  of  a  federal  court. 

That  George  William  Curtis  was  compelled  to  retire 
from  the  Civil  Service  Commission,  because  "  the  circum 
stances  under  which  several  important  appointments  had 
been  made  seemed  to  him  to  show  an  abandonment  both  of 
the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the  civil  service  regulations," 
and  because  "  he  was  unwilling  to  be  held  responsible  for 
acts  which  he  considered  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  dis 
regard  of  public  pledges  and  a  mockery  of  the  public  faith." 

That  Mr.  Bristow,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and 
Mr.  Cox,  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  who  were  the  only 
friends  of  a  reformed  civil  service  in  the  cabinet,  were  ex 
pelled  from  it  because  they  were  its  friends. 

That  one  vice-president,  one  speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  three  senators,  and  five  chairmen  of  con 
gressional  committees,  all  partisans  of  the  executive,  dis 
honored  themselves,  the  government,  and  the  nation  by 
marketing  their  influence  as  legislators  ;  that  a  secretary  of 
the  treasury  did  the  like  by  forcing  balances  in  the  public 
accounts ;  that  an  attorney-general  did  the  like  by  appro 
priating  public  funds  to  his  own  use ;  that  a  secretary  of 

1  The  books  of  the  State  department  show  that  the  indebtedness  to  the 
government  of  Clews,  Habicht,  &  Co.,  on  the  24th  of  September,  1873,  when 
they  went  into  liquidation,  amounted  to  $145,451.47.  Up  to  November  29, 
1887,  the  company  had  paid  off  $38,718.77  of  this  indebtedness.  In  1882 
the  State  department  compromised  with  Henry  Clews  for  his  individual 
Bhare  of  the  indebtedness  for  $12,500,  leaving  the  sum  of  $94,232.70  still 
standing  charged  to  Clews,  Habicht,  &  Co.  on  the  books  of  the  Ilegister  of 
the  Treasury. 


4  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL   J.    TILDE 'N 

the  navy  did  the  like  by  enriching  himself  and  his  confed 
erates  out  of  percentages  levied  upon  contractors  with  his 
department ;  while  a  secretary  of  war  was  impeached  for 
high  crimes  and  misdemeanors. 

Then  there  was  the  Emma  mine  swindle,  in  which  one  of 
our  ministers  to  England  was  understood  to  be  implicated ; 
enormous  frauds  in  the  Indian  and  printing  departments 
and  in  the  New  York  custom-house  ;  extravagant  and  cor 
rupt  expenditures  for  post-offices  and  public  structures  of 
various  kinds,  which,  during  fifteen  years,  had  amounted 
to  $51,164,978,  while  for  the  same  purposes  during  the 
seventy-two  previous  years  of  our  national  existence  the 
corresponding  expenditures  had  been  less  than  twenty-nine 
millions.  Then  there  was  the  Venezuela  scandal,  the  San 
Domingo  scheme,  the  Credit  Mobilier  scandal,  and  defalca 
tions  of  public  officers  so  numerous  as  almost  to  constitute 
the  rule  rather  than  the  exception  in  the  public  service ;  so 
numerous,  indeed,  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  per 
sistently  refused  to  comply  with  the  law  which  required  him 
annually  to  report  them  to  Congress. 

I  will  not  swell  these  pages  with  more  of  these  unsavory 
charges,  which,  to  be  complete  and  explicit,  would  alone  fill 
a  volume.  It  will  be  for  the  historian,  in  due  time,  to  deal 
with  this  saturnalia  of  crime  and  political  prostitution, 
which  few  Americans  even  now  can  recall  without  a  blush. 

Most  of  these  charges  were  established  by  congressional 
or  by  judicial  inquiry,  many  by  both.  They  of  "course 
placed  many  thousand  individuals  —  indeed,  it  would  be  no 
exaggeration  to  say  hundreds  of  thousands  —  on  the  de 
fensive,  who,  if  deprived  of  the  protection  of  a  sympathetic 
administration,  would  be  personally  as  well  as  politically 
ruined.  They  naturally  dreaded  the  accession  of  a  Demo 
cratic  administration,  from  which  they  could  expect  little 
indulgence ;  but  the  prospect  of  having  their  operations  re 
viewed  by  an  administration  with  Tilden  at  its  head  made 
them  desperate.  His  name  had  more  terrors  for  them  than 


WARRED    UPON  BY    THE  ADMINISTRATION          5 

that  of  any  other  man  in  the  Kepublic,  and  when  his  nom 
ination  with  such  practical  unanimity  by  the  St.  Louis 
convention  transpired,  they  realized  at  once  that  vce  victis 
was  to  be  the  battle  cry  of  the  campaign,  and  that  Tilden 
must  be  beaten  or  they  be  ruined.  They  were  in  the  con 
dition  of  rats  assailed  in  a  room  which  offered  no  hole  for 
escape.  The  situation  gave  them  the  courage  and  the 
recklessness  of  despair.  They  took  up  the  cry  of  the  furi 
ous  goddess,  maddened  by  the  unsuccessfulness  of  her 
malice : 

"  Flectere  si  nequeo  superos 
Archeronta  Movebo."    * 

They  did  not  undertake  to  defend  themselves,  for  that, 
they  knew,  was  useless.  Their  crimes  were  of  record,  and 
suspected,  if  not  known,  of  all  men.  Their  plan  of  battle 
was  to  assail  Tilden  with  charges  bred  of  their  own  foul 
imaginings  ;  in  the  language  of  Voltaire,  fa  ire  la  guerre  des 
pots  de  chambre,  in  the  hope  of  persuading  the  people  that 
he  was  no  better  than  they,  and  that  nothing  was  to  be 
gained  by  admitting  him  and  his  party  to  power.  They 
denounced  him  as  a  railroad  wrecker,  because  he  had  em 
ployed  his  extraordinary  talents  as  a  lawyer  and  an  organ 
izer  in  rescuing  a  number  of  railways  from  bankruptcy  and 
converting  them  into  productive  properties.  They  charged 
him  with  extorting  excessive  fees  for  his  professional  ser 
vices,  though  he  had  never  had  a  bill  for  services  success 
fully  questioned,  nor  had  he  ever  accepted  a  contingent  fee 
in  his  life.  They  charged  him  with  rebel  sympathies  dur 
ing  the  war,  though  he  was  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  revolt 
against  the  administration  which  was  proposing  to  legalize 
slavery  in  the  free  Territories ;  though  he  supported  Van 
Buren  and  Adams  for  President  in  1848-9  ;  though  he  re 
fused  his  consent  to  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
in  1854 ;  though  he  attended  and  his  name  figured  in  the 
list  of  officers  of  the  Union  meeting  held  in  New  York  imuie- 


6  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

diately  after  the  attack  on  Fort  Sumter,  and  also  attended 
another  meeting  of  the  bar,  held  for  the  same  purpose  ;  and 
though  he  was  during  the  war  in  more  or  less  continuous 
consultation  with  every  member  of  President  Lincoln's 
cabinet,  the  only  two  surviving  members  of  which  were 
then  on  the  stump  advocating  his  election. 

They  charged  him  with  intending,  if  elected,  to  indemnify 
the  South  for  their  losses  during  the  rebellion  and  to  assume 
the  rebel  debt  —  a  charge  for  which  there  was  only  the  flimsy 
foundation  that  the  Southern  States  favored  his  nomination 
and  were  expected  to  vote  for  him  at  the  election.  Though 
the  prospect  of  the  payment  of  such  losses  had  not  been  re 
garded  of  sufficient  magnitude  to  deserve  the  notice  of  the 
nominating  convention  of  either  party,  Mr.  Tilden  waived 
his  right  to  disregard  the  charge,  and  in  reply  to  a  letter 
from  the  Hon.  A.  S.  Hewitt,  who  then  represented  in  Con 
gress  the  district  in  which  Mr.  Tilden  resided,  gave  these 
charges  a  most  explicit  and  satisfactory  denial.  Even  the 
tf  Tribune,"  which  had  already  quite  forgotten  Mr.  Tilden's 
oft-acknowledged  claims  to  its  respect  as  a  man,  and  its  ad 
miration  as  a  statesman,  confessed  that  the  charge  which 
it  had  not  thought  unworthy  of  the  hospitality  of  its 
columns  had  been  fully  disposed  of  by  this  letter.1 

It  was  further  charged  that  his  health  was  too  feeble  to 
endure  the  fatigues  of  the  presidential  office,  especially 
when  increased  as  they  would  be  enormously  by  the  resto 
ration  of  a  party  which  had  been  excluded  from  the  admin 
istration  of  the  government  for  some  fourteen  years,  and 
by  such  changes  of  men  and  measures  as  would  be  the 
inevitable  consequences  of  such  restoration. 

It  was  not  the  Governor's  health  about  which  they  were 
solicitous.  They  could  have  borne  his  clinical  sufferings  and 
even  his  demise  with  Christian  fortitude,  and  aided  per 
haps  in  imposing  the  burden  which  would  have  contributed 
to  it. 

1  "  Tribune,"  Oct.  25,  1876. 


DESPERATION    OF    THE   ADMINISTRATION          7 

"  If  the  assassination 

Could  trammel  up  the  consequence  and  catch 
With  his  surcease  success." 

But  there  was  Hendricks  quite  ready  to  leap  into  the  sad 
dle.  He  was  no  "reformer,"  it  is  true,  but  he  was  before 
all  things  a  thorough  party  man  of  the  most  unadulterated 
strain,  who  they  knew  full  well  would  neglect  no  partisan 
advantage  or  leave  one  stone  upon  another  of  the  adminis 
tration  party  that  could  be  thrown  down.  There  was  no 
alternative  left  them  but  to  defeat  Tilden,  and  as  it  could 
not  be  done  by  fair  means,  it  was  too  late  for  them  to 
scruple  about  a  resort  to  foul. 

The  most  unequivocal  evidence  of  their  having  reached 
this  stage  of  desperation  was  exhibited  in  the  report  put  into 
circulation  soon  after  the  Governor's  nomination,  that  he 
had  failed  to  make  full  and  fair  returns  of  his  income  to  the 
tax  assessors.  Because  on  one  occasion  he  had  received 
the  sum  of  $20,000  as  compensation  for  professional  ser 
vice,  which  did  not  seem  to  correspond  with  his  tax 
returns  for  that  year,  it  was  assumed  that  his  return 
was  false,  concealing  or  ignoring  the  fact  that  the  fee  in 
question  was  his  compensation  for  eight  or  nine  successive 
years  of  severe  professional  toil.  I  shall  have  occasion  to 
deal  with  this  subject  more  at  length  later,  when  the  aid  of 
the  federal  judiciary  was  invoked  to  assist,  with  this  weapon 
in  its  hands,  in  defeating  his  renomination  to  the  presidency 
in  1880  and  in  1884. 

But  all  their  efforts  proved  unavailing.  The  Governor 
had  lived  too  long  in  the  public  eye  ;  his  service  had  been 
too  considerable  ;  his  character  had  sunk  its  roots  too  deep 
into  the  confidence  of  his  countrymen,  and  its  branches 
covered  too  large  a  territory  to  be  seriously  disturbed  by 
such  a  storm  as  could  be  provoked  by  the  recMess  mis 
representations  of  a  crowd  of  rogues  whom  the"  people  were 
bent  on  haling  to  judgment. 


8  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

At  the  election,  on  the  7th  November,  1876,  the  total  vote 
for  Tilden  electors  in  the  United  States  was  4,300,316 
For  Hayes 4,036,016 

Majority  for  Tilden 264,300 

Tilden's  majority  over  Grant's  majority  in  1872,         703,574 
Tilden's  majority  over  Grant's  majority  in  1868,     1,287,128 

He  was  the  choice  of  the  people,  and  with  a  larger  major 
ity  by  some  700,000  than  had  ever  been  cast  by  the  people 
of  the  United  States  for  any  other  person.  But  all  this 
majority  did  not  make  him  President.  The  Constitution 
provides  that  the  people  of  the  several  States  shall  choose 
electors  whose  votes  are  to  decide  who  shall  be  President ; 
but  how  those  votes  are  destined  to  be  counted,  or  for  which 
candidate,  are  problems  which  henceforth,  as  we  shall  now 
proceed  to  demonstrate,  there  is  no  calculus  of  variations 
that  is  competent  to  solve. 

As  a  necessary  preliminary  to  this  demonstration  the 
reader  is  requested  to  imagine  himself  in  the  editorial 
rooms  of  the  "  New  York  Times,"  at  ten  o'clock  on  the  night 
of  the  7th  of  November ;  present,  John  Foord,  then  editor- 
in-chief;  John  C.  Reid,  editor  of  the  news  department ;  and 
Charles  H.  Miller,  the  present  editor  of  the  "Times,"  but 
then  occupying  a  subordinate  position.  Sufficient  returns 
from  the  election  had  been  received  to  extinguish  all  hope 
of  electing  Hayes,  and  to  warrant  the  preparation  of  an  edi 
torial  article  to  that  effect  which  appeared  in  the  first  edition 
of  the  "  Times "  of  the  8th.  The  article  commenced  as 
follows : 

"A  DOUBTFUL  ELECTION. 

"At  the  time  of  going  to  press  with  our  first  edition,  the 
result  of  the  presidential  election  is  still  in  doubt.  Enough 
has  been  learned  to  show  that  the  vote  has  been  unprece- 
dentedly  heavy  ;  that  both  parties  have  exhausted  their  full 
legitimate  strength;  that  the  peculiar  Democratic  policy  for 


1* 

THE    CONSPIRACY  9 

which  such  extensive  preparations  were  made  in  the  large 
registry  in  this  city,  and  in  the  enormous  registry  in  Brook 
lyn,  has  had  its  effect,  and  that  in  some  of  the  States  where 
the  shotgun  and  rifle  dub  were  relied  upon  to  secure  a  Demo 
cratic  victory,  there  is  only  too  much  reason  to  fear  that  it 
has  been  successful." 

The  writer  closes  his  article  as  follows  :  "  The  Democrats, 
in  order  to  gain  the  election  (New  York  being  conceded), 
must  have  carried  New  Jersey,  and  in  addition  either 
Oregon  or  Florida.  The  returns  from  New  Jersey  leave 
the  State  in  doubt.  Oregon  is  not  heard  from.  Florida  is 
claimed  by  the  Democrats." 

Between  eleven  and  twelve  o'clock,  and  while  the  edito 
rial  gentlemen  above  named  were  assembled  together  taking 
some  refreshments,  a  note  was  received  from  the  chair 
man  of  the  Democratic  National  Committee,  then  United 
States  Senator  Barnum,  of  Connecticut,  asking  what  news 
the  "  Times "  people  had  from  Louisiana,  South  Carolina, 
Oregon,  and  Florida.  Mr.  Reid,  who  was  an  intense  parti 
san,  and  had  been  very  much  cast  down  by  the  returns,  asked 
to  see  the  note,  read  it  over  carefully,  then  sprang  up 
and,  with  a  volley  of  expletives  suited  to  the  message  he  had 
to  deliver,  exclaimed,  "  The  Democrats  are  in  doubt  about 
Louisiana,  and  South  Carolina,  Florida,  and  Oregon :  it's 
a  close  vote ;  we  must  stop  the  press  and  claim  them 
for  Hayes ;  we  must  claim  as  ours  everything  that  the 
Democrats  concede  as  doubtful."  Mr.  Reid's  reading 
of  Senator  Barnum's  mind,  and  his  mode  of  turning  its 
revelation  to  account,  was  approved  by  his  colleagues  ;  and 
the  following  editorial,  prepared  without  unnecessary  delay, 
displaced  the  one  which  had  already  gone  to  press  for  the 
country  edition. 

From  the  "New  York  Times,"  Nov.  8,  1876  (city  edi 
tion)  : 

"A  DOUBTFUL  ELECTION. 

"  At  the  time  of  going  to  press  the  result  of  the  presiden 
tial  election  is  still  in  doubt.  Enough  has  been  learned  to 


10 


THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 


show  that  the  vote  has  been  unprecedentedly  heavy.  Both 
parties  have  exhaused  their  full  legitimate  strength,  while 
the  peculiar  Democratic  policy,  for  which  such  extensive 
preparations  were  made  in  the  large  registry  of  this  city, 
and  in  the  enormous  registry  in  Brooklyn,  has  had  its 
effect. 

"  Conceding  New  York  to  Mr.  Tilden,  he  will  receive  the 
electoral  votes  of  the  following  States  : 


Alabama 10 

Arkansas 6 

Connecticut      ....  6 

Delaware 3 

Georgia 11 

Indiana 15 

Kentucky 12 

Maryland 8 

Mississippi       ....  8 

Total 184 

"  General  Hayes  will  receive  the  votes  of  the  following 
States : 


Missouri 15 

New  Jersey      ....     9 

New  York 35 

North  Carolina      .     .     .10 

Tennessee 12 

Texas 8 

Virginia 11 

West  Virginia  5 


California 6 

Colorado 3 

Illinois  .  .21 


Iowa 
Kansas  . 
Louisiana    . 
Maine     . 
Massachusetts  . 


11 

5 

8 

7 

13 


Michigan 11 

Minnesota  .  5 


Nebraska 3 

Nevada  .  3 


New  Hampshire 
Ohio  .  .  . 
Oregon  .  .  . 
Pennsylvania  . 
Rhode  Island  . 
South  Carolina 


5 

3 

22 

29 
4 

7 


Vermont 5 

Wisconsin  .  ,   10 


Total 181 

"  This  leaves  Florida  alone  still  in  doubt.  If  the  Re 
publicans  have  carried  that  State,  as  they  claim,  they  will 
have  185  votes  —  a  majority  of  one." 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  desponding  words  which  I 
have  italicized  in  the  first  article  are  eliminated  from 


THE    CONSPIRA  CY  11 

the  second,  and  all  the  doubtful  States,  including  Florida, 
claimed  for  Hayes,  assuring  him  a  majority  of  one  in  the 
electoral  college. 

What  was  in  Mr.  Reid's  mind  in  setting  up  a  formal 
claim  to  all  these  States,  on  receiving  the  impression  from 
Senator  Barn  urn's  inquiry  that  they  were  "  close,"  we  need 
not  speculate  about ;  for  we  have  his  own  testimony  upon 
the  subject. 

Not  satisfied  with  the  share  which  William  E.  Chandler 
had  been  appropriating  to  himself  of  the  credit  for  securing 
the  election  of  Hayes,  Mr.  Reid  published  in  the  "Times  " 
of  June  15,  1887,  an  account  of  what  followed  the  oper 
ations  in  the  "  Times "  office,  which  have  already  been 
disclosed. 

Mr.  Reid  informs  us  that  before  daylight  on  the  morning 
of  the  day  succeeding  that  of  the  election,  William  E. 
Chandler,  a  personage  who,  as  my  readers  of  this  genera 
tion  at  least  are  aware,  was  already  renowned  beyond  the 
boundaries  of  his  native  State  of  New  Hampshire  for  what 
the  French  call  les  petites  politiques,  arrived  at  the  Fifth- 
avenue  hotel  in  New  York.  Soon  after  his  arrival,  and 
between  six  and  half-past  six  in  the  morning,  Mr.  Reid, 
who  in  this  communication  does  not  give  his  name,  but 
uniformly  describes  himself  as  an  editor  of  the  "  New  York 
Times,"  also  entered  the  Fifth-avenue  hotel.  He  went 
at  once  to  the  rooms  of  the  national  committee,  and  found 
them  occupied  only  by  a  number  of  servants  of  the  hotel 
who  were  engaged  in  cleaning  and  setting  the  rooms  to 
rights.  He  was  informed  that  everybody  had  gone  home 
or  to  bed  a  couple  of  hours  before.  He  left  the  room  and 
started  for  the  clerk's  desk  to  ascertain  the  number  of  Mr. 
Zachariah  Chandler's  room.1 

"  On  his  way  to  the  office  of  the  hotel  he  came  in  collision 


1  Mr.  Zachariah  Chandler  was  then  a  member  of  the  United  States 
Senate  from  Michigan,  and  also  chairman  of  the  Republican  National 
Committee. 


12  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

with  a  small  man  wearing  an  immense  pair  of  goggles,  his 
hat  drawn  down  over  his  ears,  a  greatcoat  with  a  heavy 
military  cloak,  and  carrying  a  gripsack  and  a  newspaper  in 
his  hand.  The  newspaper  was  the  '  New  York  Tribune.' 
The  stranger  cried  out,  'Why,  Mr.  Blank,  is  that  you?' 
The  gentleman  knew  the  voice  and  said,  '  Is  that  you,  Mr. 
Chandler?'  He  answered,  'Yes,  I  have  just  arrived  from 

New  Hampshire   by  train.      D n  the  men   who   have 

brought  this  disaster  upon  the  Republican  party ! '  The 
gentleman  replied,  '  The  Republican  party  has  sustained 
no  disaster.  If  you  tvitt  only  keep  your  heads  up  here, 
there  is  no  question  of  the  election  of  President  Hayes. 
He  has  been  fairly  and  honestly  elected.' ' 

Mr.  Reid  and  Mr.  Chandler  then  proceeded  to  the  latter's 
room  in  the  hotel. 

"The  visitor  went  over  the  ground  carefully,  State  by 
State,  from  Maine  to  Oregon,  counting  the  electoral  vote  in 
each  State,  and  showing  the  vote  as  it  ivas  finally  counted 
for  Hayes  and  Tilden.  After  he  had  finished,  William  E. 
Chandler  said : 

'  Well,  what  do  you  think  should  be  done  ?  '  The  gen 
tleman  replied : 

'  Telegraph  immediately  to  leading  Republicans,  men 
in  authority,  in  South  Carolina,  Florida,  Louisiana,  Cali 
fornia,  Oregon,  and  Nevada.'  Mr.  Chandler  made  no  reply 
to  this  proposition,  but  said  : 

'  We  must  go  and  see  Zach.' " 

After  some  difficulty,  Mr.  Reid  and  William  E.  Chand 
ler  succeeded  in  finding  Zach.  Chandler's  room. 

"The  door  was  shortly  opened,  and  Mr.  Zachariah 
Chandler  was  discovered  standing  in  his  night-dress. 
William  E.  Chandler  then  said,  closing  the  door,  '  Here  is 
a  gentleman  who  has  more  news  than  you  have,  and  he  has 
some  suggestions  to  make.'  To  which  Zach.  Chandler 
replied:  '  Yes,  I  know  him.  What  is  it?'  with  which  he 
seated  himself  on  the  edge  of  the  bed.  William  E.  Chand 
ler  then  said  :  '  The  gentleman  will  tell  you  the  story  him 
self.  He  understands  the  case  better  than  I  do.' 


THE    CONSPIRACY  13 

"  The  gentleman  then  went  over  the  details  of  the  elec 
tion,  and  added  the  recommendations  he  had  made  to 
William  E.  Chandler. 

"  The  chairman  of  the  national  committee  lay  down  and 
said :  '  Very  well,  go  ahead  and  do  what  you  think  neces 
sary.''  " 

Mr.  Reid  and  William  E.  Chandler  then  rushed  in  com 
pany  to  the  telegraph  office  in  the  hotel.  It  was  not  yet  open 
for  business.  It  would  not  be  open  for  an  hour  or  more. 

"  The  gentleman  said  :  '  I'll  have  to  take  these  messages 
to  the  main  office  of  the  Western  Union.'  Chandler  called 
a  servant  and  directed  him  to  have  a  carriage  brought  to 
the  Twenty-third  street  entrance.  Then  Chandler  said : 

'Well,  what  do  you  want  to  do?'  The  gentleman  re 
plied  : 

'  We'll  first  telegraph  to  Governor  Chamberlain,  of 
South  Carolina.'  The  gentleman  dictated  the  despatch,  as 
follows : 

"ToD.  H.  Chamberlain,  Columbia,  B.C.: 

"Hayes  is  elected  if  ive  have  carried  South  Carolina, 
Florida,  and  Louisiana.  Can  you  hold  your  State  9  An 
swer  immedia  tely . ' 

"  Mr.  Chandler  took  the  despatch  in  shorthand,  as  dic 
tated." 

The  following  despatch  was  then  dictated  to  S.  B.  Con- 
over,  Tallahassee,  Fla.  : 

"  The  presidential  election  depends  on  the  vote  of  Flor 
ida,  and  the  Democrats  will  try  to  wrest  it  from  us.  Watch 
it  and  hasten  returns.  Answer  immediately.  Hayes  de 
feated  without  Florida.  Do  not  be  cheated  in  returns. 
Answer  when  sure." 

To  S.  B.  Packard,  of  Louisiana,  the  following  despatch 
was  sent : 


14  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"  The  presidential  election  depends  on  the  vote  of  Louis 
iana,  and  the  Democrats  will  try  and  wrest  it  from  you." 

Mr.   Reid  says  despatches  of  like  import  were  sent  to 
Oreon  and  California.     He  then  adds  : 


"William  E.  Chandler  signed  with  his  .own  name  the  de 
spatches  to  Oregon  and  to  Gorman,  of  San  Francisco.  To 
the  despatches  sent  to  Conover,  Packard,  and  Chamberlain, 
the  narrator's  recollection  is  he  signed  the  name  of  Zacha- 
riah  Chandler.  William  E.  Chandler  at  once  took  tele 
graph  blanks  and  wrote  from  his  stenographic  notes  the 
despatches  above  printed,  the  gentleman  standing  by  him 
taking  every  despatch  as  he  finished,  and  carefully  read 
ing  it.  When  the  last  despatch  was  transcribed,  Chandler 
handed  it  over  tc  the  gentleman  and  said  :  '  Are  they  all 
right?'  He  was  informed  that  they  were. 

"  The  gentleman  jumped  into  the  carriage  waiting  and 
told  the  driver  to  go  to  the  main  office  of  the  Western 
Union  with  all  possible  speed.  Probably  the  quickest  time 
ever  made  by  a  carriage  from  the  Fifth-avenue  hotel  to 
the  Western  Union  was  made  that  morning.  Arriving  at 
the  Western  Union  office,  the  gentleman  wrent  to  the  re 
ceiver's  desk  and  handed  in  the  despatches.  The  receiver, 
who  knew  the  gentleman  very  well,  said,  ?  Good  morning.' 
The  gentleman  said  : 

':  '  Get  these  despatches  off  as  quickly  as"  possible,  and 
charge  the  Republican  National  Committee.'  The  receiver 
replied  : 

"  f  The  national  committee  has  no  account  here,  and  we 
can't  do  it.  Why  not  charge  them  to  the  "New  York 
Times'"  account?' 

"  The  gentleman  replied,  '  All  right,'  and  the  receiver 
immediately  handed  them  back  to  him  to  be  countersigned. 
This  was  promptly  done.  The  gentleman  returned  to  his 
carriage  and  was  driven  back  to  the  Fifth-avenue  hotel. 
There  was  still  nobody  stirring  connected  with  the  national 
committee. 

"  The  '  New  York  Times  '  has  never  to  this  'day  [June 
15,  1887]  been  reimbursed  by  the  national  committee  or 
William  E.  Chandler;  nor  has  William  E.  Chandler,  or  any 
national  committee  ever  offered  to  repay  the  '  Times  '  for 


THE    CONSPIRACY  15 

the  telegraph  tolls  or  for  any  of  the  expenses  incurred  on 
that  morning." 

Here  we  have,  upon  the  most  authentic  possible  testimony, 
a  quasi  official  account  of  the  first  stage  in  the  erection  of 
the  complicated  structure  of  fraud  by  which  the  choice  of 
the  American  people  was  to  be  defeated  and  their  executive 
government  delivered  over  to  a  usurper. 

That  the  Tilden  and  Hendricks  ticket  was  entitled  to 
184  electoral  votes  was  undisputed.  That  the  Hayes  and 
Wheeler  ticket  was  entitled  to  165  electoral  votes  was 
also  undisputed.  There  were  369  electors  in  all.  The 
Tilden  ticket,  therefore,  with  184  votes,  needed  but  one 
more  to  give  it  the  majority  required  for  an  election.  The 
Hayes  ticket,  having  only  166  electoral  votes  assured,  re 
quired  19  votes  more  to  ensure  its  election. 

The  four  votes  of  Florida,  the  eight  of  Louisiana,  and 
seven  of  South  Carolina  made  just  nineteen.  To  get  one  of 
these  votes  was  sufficient  to  elect  Tilden  and  Hendricks. 
To  elect  Hayes  and  Wheeler  it  wras  necessary  to  get  the 
whole  nineteen. 

The  "  Times "  of  the  9th  followed  up  the  operations 
initiated  in  its  columns  the  previous  morning  by  boldly 
claiming  to  have  returns  which  gave  the  election  to  Hayes, 
though  it  could  have  had  nothing  of  the  kind.  If  it  had 
any  returns  of  such  import  they  were  of  course  simply  the 
partisan  reverberations  of  Chandler's  despatches. 

"THE  BATTLE  WON. 

"  A  REPUBLICAN  VICTORY  IN  THE  NATION  —  Gov.  HAYES 
ELECTED  PRESIDENT  AND  WILLIAM  A.  WHEELER  VICE- 
PRESIDENT —  THE  REPUBLICANS  CARRY  TWENTY-ONE 
STATES,  CASTING  185  ELECTORAL  VOTES  —  A  REPUBLI 
CAN  MAJORITY  IN  THE  NEXT  CONGRESS. 

"The  despatches  received  since  our  last  issue  confirm 
the  reports  on  which  the  'Times'  yesterday  claimed  181 
electoral  votes  for  Governor  Hayes.  On  Wednesday  the 


16  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

following  States  were  put  down  as  surely  Republican  :  Colo 
rado,  California,  Illinois,  Iowa,  Kansas,  Maine,  Massa 
chusetts,  Michigan,  Minnesota,  Nevada,  Nebraska,  New 
Hampshire,  Oregon,  Ohio,  Pennsylvania,  Rhode  Island, 
Vermont,  Wisconsin,  Louisiana,  and  South  Carolina. 
Some  of  these  States  were  claimed  by  the  Democrats ;  but 
all  intelligence,  thus  far  received,  not  only  shows  that  the 
above  estimate  was  correct,  but  that  Florida,  which  was 
left  in  doubt,  has  gone  Republican  by  at  least  1,500 
majority, —  our  latest  despatches  say  2,000,  — and  that  the 
two  Republican  Congressmen  are  also  elected.  Encourag 
ing  reports  were  received  from  Oregon  early  yesterday 
morning,  and  in  the  afternoon  came  the  decisive  news  that 
the  Democrats  conceded  the  State,  which  had  given  a  Re 
publican  majority  of  over  one  thousand,  and  gained  a 
Republican  Congressman.  In  Nebraska  the  same  condition 
of  affairs  was  shown.  There  the  Republican  majority  rose 
to  8,000.  Despatches  from  Nevada  made  it  certain  that 
the  State  had  gone  for  Hayes.  The  latest  news  from  South 
Carolina  shows  a  Republican  victory,  the  Democrats  con 
ceding  the  State  to  Hayes  and  the  Republicans  claiming 
5,000  majority.  Louisiana  is  one  of  the  States  which  the 
Democrats  have  claimed  ;  but  our  despatches,  coming  from 
various  sources  in  the  State,  show  that  it  has  gone  Repub 
lican.  The  latest  intelligence  points  to  the  certain  election 
of  Gov.  Rutherford  B.  Hayes  to  the  presidency,  and  a 
Republican  victory  in  the  nation." 

In  no  other  newspaper  in  New  York  city  or  elsewhere,  I 
believe,  wTas  a  serious  doubt  expressed  of  Tilden's  election. 
It  was  conceded  in  the  "  Times  "  office,  and  but  for  the 
inquiry  of  Barnum  I  am  assured,  upon  the  best  authority, 
that  the  question  of  his  election  would  never  have  been 
raised.  The  evidence  which  that  inquiry  furnished  of  the 
closeness  of  the  vote  operated  like  an  open  basement 
window  at  night  to  a  burglariously  disposed  passer-by.  If 
the  vote  was  so  close  as  this  inquiry  warranted  the  sus 
picion  that  it  was,  what  was  easier  for  the  administration, 
with  its  control  of  the  army,  of  all  the  federal  offices, 
including  the  judiciary,  and  with  all  the  patronage  of  the 


THE    CONSPIRACY  17 

federal  government  in  reserve,  to  warp  the  Tilden  vote 
sufficiently  to  give  Hayes  the  nineteen  votes  which  he 
lacked ;  and  how  few  are  active  in  politics  anywhere  who 
are  not  ready  to  reason  like  the  tyrant  of  Thebes : 

"Be  just,  unless  a  kingdom  tempts  to  usurpation ; 
For  that,  sovereignty  only  is  adequate  temptation." 

The  scheme  of  the  Fifth-avenue  conspirators  spread 
through  the  party  as  rapidly  as  the  poison  from  the  bite  of 
an  adder.  Republican  leaders  all  over  the  country  were 
signalled  at  once  to  claim  all  the  disputed  States  and  to  per 
sist  in  claiming  them.  At  the  same  time  it  was  arranged  to 
send  men  "  who  could  be  depended  upon  "  to  each  of  the 
States  whose  electoral  vote  was  to  be  tampered  with ;  to 
provide  ample  means  for  such  contingencies  as  might  arise  ; 
and  finally  to  open  communication  with  the  President  and 
the  Secretary  of  War  to  secure  for  the  Returning  Boards 
such  protection  for  the  work  expected  of  them  as  they 
might  require. 

Senator  Zachariah  Chandler,  chairman  of  the  National 
Republican  Committee,  proposed  to  take  charge  of  Florida, 
and  a  credit  was  opened  for  him  at  the  Centennial  Bank  in 
Philadelphia,  whose  officers  were  his  friends.  William  E. 
Chandler,  the  man  with  "  the  immense  pair  of  goggles," 
also  went  to  Florida,  and  the  Department  of  Justice  ordered 
its  detectives  to  report  to  him  at  Tallahassee.  Thomas  J. 
Brady,  with  a  force  of  special  agents  of  the  Post-Office 
Department,  followed  the  Chandlers  with  money  for  imme 
diate  use.  William  A.  Cook,  of  Washington,  was  sent  to 
Columbia,  S.C.  The  election  took  place  on  Tuesday,  the 
7th,  and  before  Thursday  night,  the  9th,  these  men  were 
all  on  their  way  to  their  posts. 

On  the  same  day,  or  night  rather,  the  following  orders 
were  issued  to  Gen.  W.  T.  Sherman  by  J.  D.  Cameron, 
Secretary  of  War,  all  dated  from  Philadelphia : 

VOL.  II.  —  2 


18  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

10  P.M.     "Order  four  companies  of  soldiers  to  Talla 
hassee,  Fla.,  at  once.     Take  them  from  the  nearest  points, 
not  from  Louisiana  or  Mississippi,  and  direct  that  they  be 
moved  with  as  little  delay  as  possible." 

11  P.M.     "In  addition  to  the  four  companies  ordered  to 
Tallahassee,  order  all  troops  in  Florida  to  the  same  point, 
and  if  you  haven't  more  than  the  companies  named,  draw 
from  Alabama  and  South  Carolina.     Advise  of  the  receipt 
of  this  and  your  action." 

11.15  P.M.  "Telegraph  General  Ruger  to  proceed  at 
once  to  Tallahassee,  Fla.,  and  upon  his  arrival  there  to 
communicate  with  Governor  Stearns.  Say  to  him  to  leave 
affairs  in  South  Carolina  in  hands  of  an  eminently  discreet 
and  reliable  officer." 

General  Grant,  who  evidently  had  not  yet  been  let  fully 
into  the  scheme  mapped  out  in  the  early  morn  of  the  day 
after  the  election,  and  who  was  satisfied  that  Tilden  had 
been  duly  elected,1  did  not  quite  comprehend  the  motive  for 
all  these  military  preparations  for  securing  a  fair  election 
which  had  been  held  three  days  before.  He  evidently  had 
suspicions  that  something  was  afoot,  the  nature  and  pur 
pose  of  which  there  was  a  manifest  disposition  to  disguise, 
if  not  altogether  to  conceal,  from  him.  He  concluded, 
therefore,  to  do  a  little  telegraphing  on  his  own  account 
and  without  the  intermediation  of  his  guileless  Secretary 
of  War.  Persuaded  in  his  own  mind  that  Tilden  and 
Hendricks  were  elected,  he  seems  to  have  been  getting 
suspicious  that  some  of  the  people  about  him,  with  the 
connivance  of  Hayes,  were  plotting  something  for  which 
he  himself  did  not  care  to  be  responsible,  and  for  that  reason 
sent  the  following  telegram  to  General  Sherman,  and  gave 
it  simultaneously  to  the  press  : 

1  George  W.  Childs  in  his  Reminiscences  reports  that  a  Republican  Sena 
tor  and  other  leading  Republicans  were  early  at  his  office  the  day  after  the 
election  to  meet  General  Grant,  who  was  then  at  Philadelphia  attending  the 
closing  exercises  of  the  Centennial  Exposition,  and  the  guest  of  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Childs.  These  gentlemen  insisted  that  Hayes  was  elected,  "  notwith 
standing  the  returns."  Mr.  Childs  tells  us  that  Grant  did  not  agree  with 
them,  but  contented  himself  with  merely  expressing  a  negative  opinion. 


THE    CONSPIRACY  19 

"PHILADELPHIA,  Nov.  10,  1876. 

«  To  GEN.  W.  T.  SHERMAN,  Washington,  D.  C.  : 

"  Instruct  General  Augur,  in  Louisiana,  and  General 
Ruger,  in  Florida,  to  be  vigilant  with  the  force  at  their  com 
mand  to  preserve  peace  and  good  order,  and  to  see  that  the 
proper  and  legal  Boards  of  Canvassers  are  unmolested  in  the 
performance  of  their  duties.  Should  there  be  any  grounds 
of  suspicion  of  fraudulent  counting  on  either  side,  it  should 
be  reported  and  denounced  at  once.  No  man  worthy  of  the 
office  of  President  would  be  willing  to  hold  the  office  if 
counted  in,  placed  there  by  fraud ;  either  party  can  afford 
to  be  disappointed  in  the  result,  but  the  country  cannot 
afford  to  have  the  result  tainted  by  the  suspicion  of  illegal 
or  false  returns. 

"U.  S.  GRANT." 

Two  weeks  before  the  election  the  federal  troops  in 
South  Carolina  had  been  increased  to  thirty-three  com 
panies,  taking  for  that  purpose  every  available  soldier  on 
the  Atlantic  seaboard  from  Fortress  Monroe  northward. 

The  President's  telegram,  whatever  the  motive  that  in 
spired  it,  was  not  in  accordance  with  the  plans  of  the  con 
spirators.  The  direction  "  to  see  that  the  proper  and  legal 
Boards  of  Canvassers  are  unmolested  in  the  performance  of 
their  duties"  was  easy  to  execute,  for  there  was  no  danger 
wrhatever  of  the  Boards  of  Canvassers  being  molested  in  the 
performance  of  their  duties ;  and  it  was  entirely  within  the 
scope  of  the  executive  authority,  if  lawfully  invited,  to  direct 
the  generals  in  command  in  the  several  States,  in  the  event 
of  an  outbreak,  to  cooperate  with  the  local  authorities  "  to 
preserve  peace  and  good  order."  No  other  interference  of 
federal  troops  within  a  State  was  lawful,  nor  could  even 
such  an  order  be  lawfully  enforced  until  the  governors  of 
the  respective  States  had  reported  that  they  were  unable  to 
preserve  the  peace,  a  condition  of  things  which  could  not 
have  been  honestly  affirmed  to  exist  in  any  State  of  the 
Union  at  that  time.  But  how  were  the  commanding 
generals  to  comply  with  the  second  term  of  Grant's  last 


20  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

telegram,  and  see  whether  there  were  any  "  grounds  for 
suspicion  of  fraudulent  counting  on  either  side  "  ?  And  to 
whom  were  they  to  report  and  denounce  it  ?  In  Louisiana 
the  canvassers  all,  without  exception,  were  Republicans, 
and  in  Florida  all  but  one  were  Republicans.  Was  it  false 
counting  by  his  own  party  the  President  wished  his  soldiers 
to  guard  against?  If  so,  he  did  not  send  enough,  or  at 
least  enough  of  the  right  kind.  How,  too,  could  the  com 
manding  generals  ascertain  whether  there  were  any  grounds 
of  suspicion  of  fraudulent  counting,  unless  they  had  been 
directed  to  supervise  the  reception,  as  well  as  the  can 
vassing,  of  the  returns?  But  this  was  equivalent  to  an 
impeachment  of  the  integrity  of  the  Returning  Boards. 

Besides,  "a  fair  count  of  the  votes  actually  cast"  was  pre 
cisely  what  the  conspirators  did  not  want.  Two  days  before 
President  Grant  stepped  between  his  Secretary  of  War  and 
the  people,  with  those  memorable  despatches,  the  polls  had 
been  closed,  and  the  returns  "  of  the  votes  actually  cast,"  save 
from  remote  counties  and  parishes  in  Florida  and  Louisiana, 
had  been  turned  in.  There  was  no  possibility  then  of 
fraudulent  counting,  except  by  the  Returning  Boards. 
When  President  Grant  sent  those  despatches  of  the  10th  of 
November  it  is  evident  that  if  he  really  meant  what  he  said 
he  was  not  aiming  his  gun  at  any  Democratic  influences  at 
work  in  the  disputed  States,  but  at  the  reckless  crowd 
about  him  who  were  tampering  with  the  Returning  Boards. 

Believing,  as  we  now  know  he  did,  that  Tilden  was 
elected,  he  might  very  naturally  have  suspected  that  all 
the  forces  of  the  federal  government  were  being  rallied  by 
his  political  staff  for  the  single  purpose  of  defeating  him. 
Grant,  with  all  his  limitations  as  a  President,  is  generally 
believed  to  have  been  too  direct  a  man  to  let  fly  the  Parthian 
shaft  with  which  he  concluded  his  telegram  to  Sherman,  if 
he  were  merely  "  playing  to  the  galleries." 

The  Returning  Boards  of  South  Carolina  and  Louisiana 
could  be  depended  upon  to  return  Republican  electors,  for 


THE    CONSPIRATORS   IN   FLORIDA  21 

the  character  of  the  Republican  officials  of  those  States 
were  known  to  be  equal  to  the  emergency  if  properly  "  pro 
tected"  and  adequately  "encouraged."  The  "encourage 
ment  "  was  on  its  way,  and  the  action  of  the  Secretary  of 
War  left  no  doubt  that  the  "  protection  "  also  was  at  hand. 
Of  Florida  the  managers  were  not  so  certain,  as  there  were 
doubts  about  the  powers  of  the  Returning  Boards  in  that 
State,  and  also  about  the  degree  of  dependence  to  be  placed 
upon  its  members.  W.  E.  Chandler  telegraphed  from 
Tallahassee  in  cipher  on  the  13th  of  November :  "  Send 
$2,000  to  Centennial  Bank  of  Philadelphia  so  I  can  draw  for 
it."  "  Have  Arthur  send  Republicans  acting  with  Demo 
crats."  On  the  15th  he  telegraphed  again  :  "Florida  needs 
eminent  counsel  and  help.  Can  you  send  $3,000  and  $2,000, 
making  $5,000?  Danger  great  here." 

Which  of  these  sums  was  used  for  "  counsel "  and  which 
for  "  help  "  has  never  transpired. 

On  the  arrival  of  AY.  E.  Chandler  in  Tallahassee,  the 
13th,  telegrams  were  sent  to  the  local  Republican  managers 
telling  them  that  the  "  State  is  close  and  you  must  make 
effort  to  render  every  possible  assistance,"  and  that  "funds 
from  Washington  would  be  on  hand  to  meet  every 
requirement." 

Chandler's  promises  that  "  counsel  "  and  "  protection  " 
should  not  be  wanting,  and  that  the  "  funds  "  from  Wash 
ington  were  on  their  way,  were  very  well  as  far  as  they 
went;  but  Chandler  was  not  the  candidate  for  the  presi 
dency,  and  there  was  no  satisfactory  evidence  that  Hayes, 
if  elected,  would  feel  under  any  obligation  to  take  up 
Chandler's  paper.  In  fact,  the  business  he  was  engaged 
in,  and  the  means  by  which  he  and  his  confederates  were 
carrying  it  on,  were  not  calculated  to  inspire  the  utmost 
confidence  in  his  promises,  nor  indeed  a  sufficient  degree 
of  confidence  to  induce  the  average  politician  to  disgrace 
himself  for  such  an  indefinite  consideration.  He  felt  too, 
probably,  that  for  the  security  of  his  own  share  in  the 


22  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

harvest  for  which  he  was  ploughing,  as  well  as  to  strengthen 
his  credit  with  the  Florida  officials,  he  must  be  able  to 
show  the  existence  of  more  direct  relations  between  him 
self  and  the  candidate  for  whose  election  he  was  toiling. 
For  this  or  some  other  reason  he  telegraphed  to  the  private 
Secretary  of  Hayes  "  to  send  Stanley  Matthews  and  others 
of  high  character." 

It  so  happened  that  when  this  note  reached  Columbus, 
Stanley  Matthews,  ex-Governor  E.  F.  Noyes,  and  Attorney- 
General  Little,  all  of  Ohio,  Senator  John  Sherman  and 
James  A.  Garfield,  had  already  left  for  New  Orleans  "  to 
fix"  the  electors  of  Louisiana.  Chandler's  request  was 
promptly  forwarded  to  them,  and  in  response  Noyes,  ac 
companied  by  John  A.  Kasson,  of  Iowa,  and  Lew  Wallace, 
of  Indiana,  started  forthwith  for  Tallahassee,  where  they 
arrived  on  the  20th.  Now  the  magnetic  circuit  was  com 
plete.  Noyes  came  direct  from  Hayes,  and  whatever 
engagements  he  endorsed,  it  was  correctly  understood  that 
Hayes  in  the  fulness  of  time  would  execute.1  Up  to  this 

1  Subsequently  Samuel  B.  McLin,  Secretary  of  State  of  Florida,  and 
one  of  the  members  of  the  Returning  Board,  testified  before  a  congressional 
committee  to  the  prevalent  opinion  among  the  Florida  Republicans  that 
Mr.  Noyes  represented  Hayes.  He  said : 

"Looking  back  now  to  that  time  [of  the  canvass]  I  feel  that  there  was 
a  combination  of  influences  that  must  have  operated  most  powerfully  in 
blinding  my  judgment  and  swaying  my  action."  What  the  "  combination 
of  influences  "  were  he  in  part  disclosed.  "  I  Avas  shown  numerous  tele 
grams  addressed  to  Governor  Stearns  and  others  from  the  trusted  leaders 
of  the  Republican  party  in  the  North,  insisting  that  the  salvation  of  the 
country  depended  upon  the  vote  of  Florida  being  cast  for  Hayes.  These 
telegrams  also  gave  assurances  of  the  forthcoming  of  money  and  troops  if 
necessary  in  securing  the  victory  for  Mr.  Hayes.  Following  these  tele 
grams  trusted  Northern  Republicans,  party  leaders,  and  personal  friends 
of  Mr.  Hayes  arrived  in  Florida  as  rapidly  as  the  railroads  could  bring 
them.  I  was  surrounded  by  these  men,  who  were  ardent  Republicans,  and 
especially  by  friends  of  Governor  Hayes.  One  gentleman  particularly, 
Governor  Noyes,  of  Ohio,  was  understood  to  represent  him  and  speak  with 
the  authority  of  a  warm  personal  friend,  commissioned  with  power  to  act 
in  his  behalf.  These  men  referred  to  the  general  destruction  of  the  country 
should  Mr.  Tilden  be  elected,  the  intense  anxiety  of  the  Republican  party 


THE  CONSPIRATORS  IN  FLORIDA       23 

time  Chandler  had  received  $15,000,  besides  what  he  took 
with  him.  In  one  of  his  despatches,  November  28th,  he 
asks  for  "  $3,000  in  large  bills;  probably  shall  not  need  it,  — 
majority  about  twenty,  — but  be  ready  for  any  emergency." 

With  a  practically  unlimited  credit  at  Washington,  and 
the  prospective  patronage  of  the  federal  government  hy 
pothecated  to  the  conspirators,  the  fate  of  the  electoral  vote 
of  Florida  was  not  difficult  to  forecast. 

Those  who  wish  to  know  in  ample  detail  to  what  foul 
uses  all  these  vast  and  complex  resources  were  devoted  for 
the  purpose  of  wresting  from  the  State  of  Florida  its  right 
to  a  voice  in  the  choice  for  the  presidency,  I  must  refer  to 
the  voluminous  records  of  the  forty-fourth  and  forty-fifth 
Congresses.  Even  a  concise  detail  of  it  would  occupy  more 
space  than  I  can  venture  to  devote  to  the  entire  career  of  the 
most  conspicuous  individual  victim  of  the  conspiracy  which 
is  there  laid  bare.  I  must  content  myself  with  the  briefest 
possible  summary  of  some  of  the  transactions  to  which  the 
power  and  dignity  of  the  federal  government,  and  to  a  large 
extent  the  honor  of  the  nation,  were  deliberately  prostituted. 

The  returns  of  the  county  canvassers  in  Florida  when 
footed  up  showed  a  majority  for  the  Tilden  electors,  —  24,441 
votes  for  Tilden  and  Hendricks,  and  24,350  for  Hayes  and 

of  the  North,  and  their  full  sympathy  Avith  us.  I  cannot  say  how  far  my 
action  may  have  been  influenced  by  the  intense  excitement  that  prevailed 
around  me,  or  how  far  my  partisan  zeal  may  have  led  me  into  error ; 
neither  can  I  say  how  far  my  course  was  influenced  by  the  promises  made 
by  Governor  Noyes,  that  if  Mr.  Hayes  became  President  I  should  be  re- 
Avarded.  Certainly  their  influences  must  have  had  a  strong  control  over 
my  judgment  and  actions." 

L.  G.  Dennis,  the  Republican  boss  in  Alaclma  county,  also  testified  that 
Noyes  "often  spoke  of  Mr.  Hayes  and  referred  to  him  as  his  intimate 
friend,  and  gave  us  assurances  of  Mr.  Hayes'  fidelity  to  the  Republican 
cause,  and  of  his  special  desire  to  take  care  of  Southern  Republicans." 

When  asked  if  Noyes  Avas  generally  regarded  by  the  people  there  as  the 
personal  representative  of  Hayes,  Dennis  ansAvered,  "  We  regarded  him  as 
such.  I  cannot  state  by  Avhat  means  I  arrived  at  that  conclusion,  but  he 
Avas  regarded  by  the  people  there  as  the  special  representative  of  Mr. 
Hayes.  It  Avas  generally  understood  that  he  Avas  there  at  the  request  of 


24  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

Wheeler.  By  the  law  of  Florida  and  by  a  decision  of  its 
Supreme  Court  the  county  returns  were  final,  and  the  Can 
vassing  Board  had  merely  the  ministerial  duty  of  tabulating 
the  votes  and  declaring  the  result.  There  was  no  resource 
for  the  conspirators  but  to  disregard  the  law  and  doctor  the 
returns  to  the  extent  necessary  to  meet  the  emergency. 
This  they  unhesitatingly  proceeded  to  do. 

The  votes  of  one  precinct  in  Hamilton  county,  which 
gave  the  Tilden  electors  a  majority  of  31,  were  all 
thrown  out  on  the  affidavits  of  two  Republican  inspectors 
that  they  had  absented  themselves  at  different  times  during 
the  day  of  election  from  the  polls,  and  without  any  pretence 
of  fraud  or  illegal  voting. 

"  The  votes  of  another  precinct  of  Jackson  county,  Florida, 
which  gave  the  Tilden  electors  291  votes  and  the  Hayes 
electors  77,  were  thrown  out  because  the  inspectors  went  to 
dinner  after  locking  the  ballot-box  in  a  secure  place  and 
leaving  the  key  with  f  the  Republican  inspector,  who  cer 
tified  to  the  returns  and  testified  that  there  was  no  fraud 
nor  wrong  about  the  election.' 

"The  entire  votes  of  Manatee  county —  262  for  the  Til 
den  electors  to  26  for  the  Hayes  electors  —  were  thrown 
out  on  the  ground  that  there  had  been  no  registration,  when 
the  fact  was  that  Governor  Stearns  would  not  appoint  a 
county  clerk,  that  there  might  be  no  registration  in  this 
strong  Democratic  county.  There  was  no  pretence  of 
fraud,  or  that  any  illegal  vote  had  been  cast.  Governor 
Stearns  was  rewarded  with  the  appointment  of  Commis 
sioner  of  Hot  Springs,  Arkansas,  at  $10  a  day,  within 
thirty  days  after  Hayes'  inauguration. 

"  The  votes  of  Key  West  — 401  for  Tilden  to  59  for  Hayes 
—  were  all  rejected  because  the  election  officers  failed  to 
complete  the  certificate  of  their  returns  on  the  day  of  the 
election,  without  any  imputation  or  pretence  of  fraudulent 
voting.  The  ballots  had  been  counted  after  the  close  of 
the  poll  on  the  night  of  the  election,  the  result  announced, 


THE    CONSPIRATORS   IN   FLORIDA  25 

and  the  certificate  partly  made  out,  when  a  bottle  of  ink  was 
upset  and  a  new  certificate  had  to  be  made.  This  was 
postponed  until  the  following  morning,  when  the  ballots 
were  recounted  and  found  to  tally  exactly  with  the  count  of 
the  previous  day,  except  that  one  more  ballot  was  found 
for  the  Republican  electors. 

"  While  no  pretext  was  too  flimsy  to  procure  the  rejection 
of  votes  for  a  Democratic  elector,  no  crime  was  so  flagitious 
as  to  exclude  a  vote  for  a  Republican  elector.  The  negro 
clerk  and  negro  inspector  of  Alachua  county  brought  with 
them  to  L.  G.  Dennis,  the  Republican  boss  of  that  county, 
a  blank  for  the  returns  of  the  election  already  signed  and 
sealed,  the  figures  not  yet  filled  in.  When  asked  by  Den 
nis  for  the  vote  of  their  precinct,  they  said  178  Republican 
and  141  Democratic.  At  this  Dennis  expressed  great  in 
dignation  and  said  the  business  had  not  been  properly 
managed.  The  blacks  expressed  contrition  and  were  sent 
to  an  upper  room,  supplied  with  a  printed  list  of  the  voters 
of  the  county,  and  from  this  proceeded  to  add  219 
names  to  the  poll  list  and  as  many  votes  for  the  Repub 
lican  candidates.  Notwithstanding  that  one  of  the  inspect 
ors  made  an  affidavit  that  the  return  was  forged  and  false, 
it  was  counted  and  allowed  by  the  State  canvassers.  Den 
nis  procured  one  of  the  Democratic  inspectors  to  corrobo 
rate  the  returns  of  the  negro  inspector  and  clerk  by  a  bribe 
of  $100,  and  another  affidavit  of  the  same  character  from  one 
Floyd  Dukes  was  procured  at  the  price  of  $25." 

When  the  alter  ego  of  Mr.  Hayes,  ex-Governor  Noyes, 
to  whom  was  assigned  the  defence  of  this  fraud  before  the 
State  canvassers,  wanted  Dennis  subsequently  to  support 
the  transaction  by  his  testimony  before  a  congressional 
committee,  Dennis  gave  him  to  understand  that  he  did  not 
propose  to  do  any  swearing.  His  own  testimony  upon 
this  point  is  worthy  of  reproduction. 

"  Q.  Did  Mr.  Noyes  ask  you  to  become  a  witness  your 
self  in  regard  to  that  precinct  ? 


26  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

"A.    Yes,  sir. 

"  Q.  Were  you  a  witness  or  had  you  made  an  affidavit 
with  reference  to  box  No.  2  of  Archer  precinct,  which 
affidavit  was  to  be  used  before  the  Returning  Board? 

"  A.  No,  sir ;  I  never  made  any  statement  whatever 
for  that  purpose. 

"  Q.  State  the  conversation  which  took  place  between 
you  and  Mr.  Noyes  in  regard  to  your  appearing  as  a 
witness  before  the  Returning  Board  in  reference  to  box  No. 
2  at  Archer  precinct  ? 

r'  A.  He  did  express  that  desire  several  times.  I  do  not 
know  that  he  ever  spoke  of  it  but  once  as  though  he  in 
tended  to  put  me  on  the  stand,  and  then  I  advised  him  not 
to  do  it. 

"  Q>  What  did  you  say  to  him,  and  what  did  he  say  to 
you? 

"A.  I  do  not  recollect  the  exact  words,  but  I  think  he 
said  in  a  familiar  sort  of  way  that  he  should  put  me  on  the 
stand  that  day.  I  suggested  to  him  that  I  should  be  a 
detriment  to  his  case  if  he  did,  and  that  I  thought  he  had 
better  not  do  it. 

"  Q.  Can  you  repeat  the  exact  words  which  you  used  in 
reference  to  your  being  a  detriment  to  his  case  ? 

"  A.  I  cannot,  but  I  made  it  strong.  I  may  have  said 
that  unless  he  was  ready  to  abandon  his  case,  he  had  better 
not  put  me  on  the  stand.  I  may  have  made  it  as  strong  as 
that.  I  wanted  to  give  him  to  understand  that  I  did  not 
want  to  go  on  the  stand  to  make  any  statement  under  oath. 
I  cannot  repeat  the  exact  words  ;  but  it  was  said  with  suffi 
cient  force  to  have  the  desired  effect. 

"  Q.  Did  Governor  Noyes,  after  you  told  him  in  some 
form  of  words  that  it  would  be  inconvenient  to  his  case  to 
put  you  on  the  stand,  ever  refer  to  that  refusal  on  your 
part  to  go  on  the  stand  in  any  form  of  words  ? 

n  A.  I  think  he  jocosely  said  one  day  that  I  was  not 
very  forward  about  swearing,  or  something  of  that  kind. 

"  Q.  Wasn't  it  something  like  this :  'You  talk  well 
enough,  Dennis,  but  you  don't  swear '  ? 

"  A.   Something  to  that  effect." 

For  his  services  in  maintaining  the  validity  of  this 
return,  Noyes  was  rewarded,  soon  after  Hayes'  inaugura 
tion,  with  the  mission  to  France. 


THE    CONSPIRATORS    IN  FLORIDA  27 

"  The  county  judge  and  clerk  of  the  Election  Board  of 
the  seventh  precinct  of  Jefferson  county  stole  a  bundle  of 
one  hundred  Democratic  tickets,  which  the  inspectors  had 
tied  up  as  they  were  counting  the  ballots,  and  left  in  their 
place  one  hundred  Republican  tickets.  The  clerk  con 
fessed  his  crime  and  fled  the  State  to  avoid  prosecution. 
Though  the  facts  were  all  proven  before  the  Returning 
Board,  the  return  was  accepted  and  counted.  This  county 
judge  and  clerk  were  rewarded  with  clerkships  in  the 
Land  Office  at  Washington,  with  a  salary  of  $1,200  each 
per  annum. 

"  In  the  Monticello  precinct  of  Jefferson  county  all  but 
five  of  the  Democratic  ballots  were  stolen  and  Republican 
ballots  substituted  and  counted." 

Joseph  Bowes,1  who  was  inspector  at  Precinct  No.  13, 
Leon  county,  "  procured  a  lot  of  small  Republican  tickets 
to  be  printed  in  very  fine  type,  and  on  thin  paper.  These 
tickets,  spoken  of  in  Florida  as  '  little  jokers,'  he  had 
printed  at  the  official  Republican  printing-office.  Before 
the  election  he  showed  them  to  Mr.  McLin,  and  stated 
his  purpose  of  using  them.  The  plan  was  to  fold  them  up 
inside  the  ballots  that  were  voted,  and  have  them  surrepti 
tiously  cast,  or  otherwise  to  smuggle  them  into  the  ballot 
boxes,  which  their  small  size  easily  admitted  of.  McLin 
advised  Bowes  not  to  use  them.  After  the  election  Bowes 
stated  that  he  had  managed  to  smuggle  seventy-three  of 
them  into  the  boxes  of  his  precinct,  and  he  told  McLin, 
after  the  State  had  been  awarded  to  the  Democrats,  and  it 
was  known  Drew  was  to  be  governor,  that  he  was  in  a 
scrape  on  this  account,  and  that  he  had  to  clear  out  for 
stuffing  the  boxes.2 

"  The  evidence  establishing  this  fraud  of  ballot-box  stuf 
fing  was  before  the  Returning  Board,  but  the  return  for 
Precinct  No.  13,  Leon  county,  was  accepted." 

1  H.  B.  Misc.  Doc.  No.  31,  Part  2,  45th  Cong.  3d  Sess.  pp.  79,  94-7, 
129,  152,  153. 

2H.  R.  Misc.  Doc.  No.  31,  45th  Cong.  3d  Sess.  p.  11. 


28  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDE  N 

General  Francis  C.  Barlow,  ex-Attorney-General  of 
New  York,  was  one  of  the  visiting  statesmen  who  went  to 
Florida  at  President  Grant's  request,  "to  witness  a  fair 
count  of  the  ballots  actually  cast."  Dennis  and  Chandler 
soon  discovered  that  Barlow  was  not  the  sort  of  man  they 
required  to  deal  with  the  Alachua  case,  and  Noyes  was 
assigned  in  his  place.  Barlow  continued,  however,  to 
take  an  active  part  in  making  up  the  Kepublican  case  ;  but 
when  the  returns  were  all  in,  he  became  satisfied  that, 
applying  the  same  tests  to  the  Republican  votes  as  the  Re 
publicans  insisted  upon  applying  to  Democratic  votes,  the 
result  would  be  a  majority  for  Tilden.  He  endeavored  to 
impress  this  view  upon  one  of  the  State  canvassers,  —  Cow- 
gill  by  name, —  whom  he  believed  to  be  an  honest  man. 
Why  he'  did  not  lay  it  before  the  Board,  unhappily  for 
Barlow,  if  not  for  the  country,  does  not  appear.  Barlow 
swears  that  after  a  full  discussion  of  the  case  Cowgill  said, 
"  I  agree  with  you.  I  cannot  conscientiously  vote  the  other 
way.  I  cannot  conscientiously  vote  to  give  the  State  to 
the  Hayes  electors." 

Governor  Stearns,  learning  that  Cowgill  was  closeted 
with  Barlow,  joined  them  to  learn  what  might  be  going 
on,  and  was,  told  by  Barlow  what  he  had  been  saying 
to  Cowgill.  Cowgill  left  with  Stearns.  Barlow  and  he 
never  met  again.  Cowgill  came  to  Washington  soon  after 
the  inauguration,  confident  of  recognition.  He  had  been 
promised  an  auditorship  in  the  treasury,  but  was  tendered 
the  position  of  special  agent  in  the  internal  revenue  ser 
vice.  This  did  not  accord  with  his  estimate  of  his  services, 
and  he  returned  to  Florida,  a  wiser  if  not  a  better  man. 

When  McLin,  who  was  Secretary  of  State  of  Florida, 
and  ex-officio  member  of  the  Returning  Board,  was  subse 
quently  asked  by  a  congressional  committee  "  what  prom 
ises  these  visiting  statesmen  from  the  North  made  to  the 

O 

Republican  leaders  and  the  Returning  Board,  if  the  State 
should  go  for  Mr.  Hayes,"  he  replied : 


THE    CONSPIRATORS   IN   FLORIDA  29 

"  Well,  General  Wallace  told  me  on  several  occasions 
that  if  Mr.  Hayes  should  be  elected,  that  the  members  of 
the  Returning  Board  should  be  taken  care  of,  and  no  doubt 
about  that ;  that  Governor  JSToyes  represented  Mr.  Hayes 
and  spoke  for  him  and  was  in  favor  of  it.1  Then  on  one 
occasion  William  E.  Chandler  came  to  me  and  stated  that 
he  didn't  like  to  say  it  to  me,  but  he  would  say  it  to  me, 
and  he  spoke  for  General  Wallace  also,  that  if  the  State 
went  and  was  canvassed  for  Mr.  Hayes,  that  the  members 
of  the  Returning  Board,  — at  least  he  referred  to  a  majority 
of  the  board,  —  Dr.  Cowgill  and  myself,  would  be  well 
taken  care  of,  and  there  would  be  no  doubt  of  it ;  he  said 
he  was  authorized  to  say  that." 

McLin  further  testified  that  Dr.  Cowgill  told  him  that  in 
March,  1877,  he  was  in  Washington  and  saw  Hayes  fre 
quently  ; 2  "  that  he  was  received  very  kindly  by  the 
President,  and  given  free  admission  to  the  White  House 
at  all  times,  and  that  he  had  expressed  himself  as  being 
under  great  obligations  to  him  and  me  in  the  canvass,  and 
that  he  felt  not  only  under  political  obligations,  but  per 
sonal  obligations,  that  he  would  certainly  pay  at  an  early 
day." 

McLin  was  appointed  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
New  Mexico  ad  interim,  and  failed  of  confirmation  because 
Senator  Conover,  of  Florida,  opposed  it. 

F.  C.  Humphreys,  elector  at  large  on  the  Republican 
ticket,  was  appointed  collector  of  customs  at  Pensacola. 

Dennis  Eagan,  chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Com 
mittee,  was  appointed  collector  of  internal  revenue. 

Governor  Stearns  was  appointed  commissioner  of  the 
Hot  Springs,  Arkansas. 

J.  M.  Howell,  the  deputy  clerk  of  Baker  county,  who 
assisted  the  county  judge  Driggers  in  getting  up  the  fraud 
ulent  return  from  that  county,  was  appointed  collector  of 
customs  at  Fernandina. 

1  H.  R.  Misc.  Doc.  No.  31,  Part  2,  45th  Cong.  3d  Sess.  pp.  100,  101. 

2  H.  R.  Misc.  Doc.  No.  31,  Part  2,  45th  Cong.  3d  Sess.  p.  118. 


30  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

Dennis  was  appointed  to  a  sinecure  position  in  the  su 
pervising  architect's  office  at  Washington  at  a  salary  of  seven 
dollars  a  day. 

One  of  the  negroes  who  assisted  Dennis  in  making  up 
the  spurious  returns  for  Alachua  county,  and  swore  to 
affidavits  for  him,  was  appointed  night  inspector  in  the 
Philadelphia  custom-house. 

The  other  negro  who  rendered  Dennis  the  same  service 
was  appointed  a  clerk  to  the  auditor  of  the  treasury  for 
the  Post-Office  Department. 

Joseph  Bowes,  who  had  the  "little  jokers"  printed,  and 
voted  seventy-three  of  them  himself,  and  who  was  one  of  the 
busiest  manufacturers  of  affidavits,  and  who  had  to  flee  the 
State  to  escape  the  legal  penalties  of  his  iniquity,  took 
refuge  in  Washington,  where  he  was  rewarded  with  a  clerk 
ship  in  the  Treasury  Department,  on  a  salary  of  $1,600  per 
annum . 

W.  K.  Cessna,  county  judge  of  Alachua  county,  who 
assisted  Dennis  in  procuring  Green  R.  Moore  to  make  his 
$100  affidavit,  was  appointed  postmaster  at  Gainesville, 
Fla. 

Lewis  A.  Barnes,  another  of  Dennis'  assistants,  was  ap 
pointed  register  of  the  Land  Office  at  Gainesville. 

Moses  J.  Taylor,  the  clerk  of  Jefferson  county  and  in 
spector  of  one  of  the  polls  of  the  Monticello  precinct,  who 
got  away  with  all  but  five  of  the  Democratic  tickets  and 
substituted  Republican  tickets,  was  also  made  a  clerk  in 
the  General  Land  Office  at  Washington. 

John  Yarnum,  an  affidavit  maker  and  assistant  general, of 
militia,  was  appointed  receiver  of  the  United  States  Land 
Office. 

Manuel  Govin,  postmaster  at  Jacksonville,  and  an  assist 
ant  affidavit  manufacturer,  was  sent  as  consul  to  Leghorn. 

M.  Martin,  acting  chairman  of  the  Republican  State 
Committee,  was  made  surveyor-general  of  Florida. 

George  H.  DeLeon,  secretary  to  Governor  Stearns,  was 


THE    CONSPIRATORS   IN   FLORIDA  31 

appointed  a  clerk  in  the  Second  Auditor's  Office  at  Wash 
ington. 

George  D.  Mills,  telegrapher  at  Tallahassee  and  one  of  the 
clerks  of  the  State  canvassers,  was  appointed  clerk  in  the 
Pension  Office  at  Washington. 

John  A.  Kassori,  who  accompanied  Noyes  to  Florida  to 
vouch  for  Hayes'  gratitude  for  favors  expected,  was  ap 
pointed  envoy  extraordinary  to  Austria. 

Lew  Wallace,  for  like  service,  was  appointed  Governor 
of  New  Mexico,  declining  which,  he  was  sent  to  Constanti 
nople  as  minister-resident. 

F.  N.  Wicker,  the  collector  of  customs  at  Key  West, 
upon  whose  testimony  the  State  canvassers  rejected  the  poll 
No.  3  of  that  town,  was  continued  in  office. 

Thomas  J.  Brady,  Second  Assistant  Postmaster-General, 
who  carried  the  money  to  Chandler,  accompanied  by  H. 
Clay  Hopkins,  agent  of  the  postal  division  of  New  York 
city,  William  T.  Henderson,  L.  L.  Tilball,  B.  H.  Camp, 
Alfred  Morton,  all  post-office  inspectors,  were  retained  in 
office  by  President  Hayes.  Tilball  was  subsequently  pro 
moted  to  the  United  States  marshalship  of  Arizona. 

William  E.  Chandler,  not  receiving  a  prompt  reward  for 
his  services,  turned  upon  the  chromo  President  he  had  hung 
up  in  the  White  House  for  deserting  his  Louisiana  and 
South  Carolina  coefficients,  and  practically  acknowledged^ 
that  Hayes  had  never  been  elected  President  by  the  people. 

General  Barlow,  the  only  one  of  the  visiting  statesmen 
who  seems  to  have  believed  that  Grant  and  Hayes  were  in 
earnest  in  professing  a  desire  for  a  fair  count,  was  the  only 
other  one  of  the  whole  array  whom  Hayes  failed  to  "  recog 
nize."  He  was  charged  with  disloyalty  to  the  party,  and 
put  into  Coventry,  where  it  has  since  left  him  to  chew  the 
cud  of  sweet  and  bitter  fancies.  Had  he  the  same  duty 
committed  to  him  again,  I  venture  to  doubt  whether  he 
would  not,  by  a  timely  disclosure  of  his  convictions,  have 
assisted  Tilden  to  take  the  office  to  which  the  people  had 


32  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

chosen  him,  instead  of  permitting  that  great  office  to  be 
sequestered  to  the  base  uses  of  a  partisan  conspiracy  by  his 
forbearance.1 

1  It  is  but  just  to  Mr.  Barlow  to  say  that  his  support  of  Hayes  for  Presi 
dent,  in  1876,  was  not  from  any  distrust  of  Mr.  Tilden  personally,  nor  from 
any  doubt  of  his  superior  fitness  for  the  duties  of  a  chief  magistrate,  but 
from  a  distrust  of  the  party  which  nominated  him. 

The  apprehensions  here  expressed  may  have  had  its  weight  in  determin 
ing  him  to  assume  the  passive  attitude  which  he  occupied  after  he  had  satis 
fied  himself  that  the  electoral  vote  of  Florida  was  wrested  from  Tilden  by 
fraud. 

The  general  here,  as  Mr.  William  C.  Bryant  and  many  other  distin 
guished  patriots  had  done  before  him,  made  the  capital  mistake  of  under 
estimating  the  numbers  and  power  of  the  Democratic  party  who  supported 
the  Union  during  the  war,  and  whose  sacrifices  in  its  behalf  were  not 
made  nor  to  be  estimated  by  any  partisan  measure.  Mr.  Lincoln  in  select 
ing  for  his  cabinet  advisers  a  majority  of  life-long  Democrats,  to  say 
nothing  of  his  generals,  of  whom  by  far  the  larger  proportion  who  distin 
guished  themselves  were  of  the  same  party,  displayed,  in  my  judgment,  a 
wiser  appreciation  of  the  political  forces  upon  which  he  had  to  depend  for 
the  preservation  of  the  Union. 


Of    THF 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 

ILIFOKI 


CHAPTER  II 

The  conspirators'  operations  in  Louisiana  —  William  Pitt  Kellogg  —  Visit 
ing  statesmen  in  New  Orleans  —  The  composition  and  operations  of 
the  Louisiana  Returning  Board  —  Garfield  —  Sherman  —  Anderson  — 
Jewett  —  Eliza  Pinkston  —  Fraudulent  registration  —  The  reward  of 
the  conspirators. 

THE  methods  by  which  Hayes  electors  were  secured 
from  Louisiana  were,  if  possible,  more  shameless  and  inde 
fensible  than  those  employed  for  the  like  purpose  in 
Florida. 

William  Pitt  Kellogg,  then  Governor  of  Louisiana  by 
virtue  of  an  illegal  order  of  Judge  Durell  of  the  United 
States  District  Court,  enforced  by  federal  troops  under 
orders  from  President  Grant,  enjoys  the  credit  of  having 
concocted  the  measures  by  which  the  people  of  that  State 
were  deprived  of  their  choice  of  presidential  electors. 
His  objective  point  was  a  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate 
for  himself.  He  had  already  managed  to  subject  all  the 
elective  machinery  of  the  State  to  his  personal  control. 
He  had  the  appointment  of  the  supervisors  and  assistant 
supervisors  of  registration  for  every  parish  and  ward 
in  the  State ;  he  dictated  the  appointments  of  all  the  com 
missioners  of  election,  the  State  register  of  voters  and  his 
clerks. 

Events  subsequently  disclosed  a  deliberate  purpose  on 
the  part  of  Kellogg  and  his  Kepublican  confederates  to  in 
validate  the  election  in  seven  parishes  where  they  found 
they  could  not  control  the  negro  vote,  and  by  fictitious 
registration  of  names  to  make  up  whatever  number  of 
votes  might  be  needed  to  secure  a  majority.  To  under 
stand  how  this  was  to  be  accomplished  it  is  necessary  to 

VOL.  II.— 3 


34:  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

notice  some  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  Louisiana  election 
laws. 

The  Returning  Board  in  Louisiana  had  no  power  to 
reject  the  vote  of  any  precinct  unless  the  certificate  from 
such  precinct  came  to  them  accompanied  by  a  sworn  pro 
test  signed  by  the  supervisors,  that  intimidation  had  been 
practised.  The  Commissioners  of  Elections  in  each  parish 
were  required  by  law  to  make  out  their  returns  on  the  day 
of  the  election,  and  if  anything  happened  to  affect  "the 
purity  and  freedom  "  of  the  election,  they  were  to  make  a 
statement  thereof  under  oath  and  have  three  citizens  vouch 
for  its  truth,  and  forward  this  statement  with  their  returns, 
the  tally  sheets,  registration  lists,  all  made  out  in  duplicate, 
one  to  the  supervisor  and  one  to  the  clerk  of  the  Parish 
Court. 

These  returns  from  the  commissioners  the  supervisors 
were  required  by  law  to  consolidate  in  duplicate ;  have 
them  certified  as  correct  by  the  clerk  of  the  District  Court, 
according  to  the  returns  in  his  office ;  to  deposit  one  copy 
of  the  consolidated  statement  with  the  said  clerk  and  ''for 
ward  the  other  by  mail,  enclosed  in  an  envelope  of  strong 
paper  or  cloth  securely  sealed"  to  the  Returning  Board, 
with  all  the  returns  made  by  the  commissioners,  including 
their  statement,  if  any,  in  regard  to  occurrences  affecting 
the  "  purity  and  freedom "  of  the  voting.  They  had  no 
authority  to  reject  the  returns  from  any  poll  or  to  refuse  to 
compile  them  in  their  consolidated  statements. 

When  these  consolidated  returns  reached  the  Returning 
Board,  its  duty  was  first  to  compile  the  vote  from  those 
polls  where  there  was  presented  no  evidence  that  there  had 
not  been  "fair,  free,  and  peaceable  registration  and  election." 
That  done,  they  were  to  take  up  the  cases  where  the  com 
missioners  had  reported  that  there  had  not  been  a  fair,  free, 
and  peaceable  registration  and  election. 

The  law  required  this  Returning  Board  to  meet  in  Xew 
Orleans  "within  ten  days  after  the  closing  of  the  election, 


THE    CONSPIRACY   IN   LOUISIANA  35 

to  canvass  and  compile  the  statements  of  the  votes  made  by 
the  Commissioners  of  Election,"  and  to  continue  in  session 
till  <f  such  returns  have  been  compiled."  The  law  also 
required  that  this  board  should  consist  of  "  five  persons  to 
be  elected  by  the  Senate  from  all  political  parties."  The 
Senate  pretended  to  have  complied  with  this  law  by 
appointing  four  Republicans  and  one  Democrat.  The 
Democrat  that  was  appointed  resigned.  The  law  provided 
that  in  case  of  any  vacancy  by  death,  resignation,  or  other 
wise,  by  either  of  the  board,  then  the  vacancy  shall  be 
filled  by  the  residue  of  the  returning  officers."  It  was  very 
certain  that  the  presence  of  a  Democrat  to  witness  the  work 
they  had  in  hand  would  prove  most  inconvenient,  and 
therefore  they  refused  to  fill  the  vacancy. 

The  scheme  upon  which  Kellogg  finally  settled  for  in 
validating  the  election  was  by  alleging  intimidation  of 
voters,  and  upon  that  pretext  throwing  out  enough  Demo 
cratic  votes  to  give  the  electoral  vote  of  the  State  to 
Hayes. 

During  the  two  weeks  succeeding  the  election,  visiting 
statesmen  of  both  the  great  political  parties  had  flocked  to 
New  Orleans.  Several  of  the  more  conspicuous  repre 
sentatives  of  the  Democratic  party  there  lost  no  time  in 
addressing  a  note  to  Stanley  Matthews,  James  A.  Garfield, 
John  A.  Logan,  William  D.  Kelley,  John  A.  Kasson,  Will 
iam  M.  Evarts,  E.  W.  Stoughton,  and  John  A.  Dix,  each 
and  all  of  whom  claimed  to  represent  either  the  President 
in  esse  or  the  President  in  posse,  or  both.  In  this  note  they 
stated  that  having  understood  that  the  gentlemen  they 
addressed  were  there  at  the  request  of  President  Grant,  to 
see  that  the  Board  of  Convassers  make  a  fair  count  of  the 
votes  actually  cast,  they  invited  a  conference  in  order  that 
such  influence  as  they  possessed  might  be  "  exerted  in 
behalf  of  such  a  canvass  of  the  votes  actually  cast  as  by  its 
fairness  and  impartiality  shall  command  the  respect  and 
acquiescence  of  the  American  people  of  all  parties." 


36  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

This  invitation  was  declined  by  the  Republican  "  visiting 
statesmen "  on  the  ground  that  they  were  indisposed  to 
reduce  the  function  of  the  Returning  Board  "  to  the  mere 
clerical  duty  of  counting  the  votes  actually  cast,  irrespec 
tive  of  the  question  whether  they  were  fraudulently  and 
violently  cast  or  otherwise  vitiated."  They  further  stated 
that  "it  is,  in  our  judgment,  vital  to  the  preservation  of 
constitutional  liberty  that  the  habit  of  obedience  to  the 
forms  of  law  should  be  sedulously  inculcated  and  culti 
vated,  and  that  the  resort  to  extra-constitutional  modes  of 
redress,  for  even  actual  grievances,  should  be  avoided  and 
condemned  as  revolutionary,  disorganizing,  and  tending  to 
disorder  and  anarchy." 

Such  a  plea  in  avoidance  might  be  successfully  demurred 
to  in  any  court  of  justice  of  competent  jurisdiction.  How 
the  habit  of  obedience  to  the  forms  of  law  was  to  be 
compromised  by  the  proposed  conference,  even  though  at 
the  worst  it  failed  to  secure  concert  of  action,  is  not  quite 
clear.  Be  that,  however,  as  it  may,  if  "  obedience  to  the 
forms  of  law  "  was  the  motive  of  their  long  journey  to  New 
Orleans  and  their  protracted  detention  there,  it  proved  a 
singular  waste  of  energy,  for  every  one  of  the  provisions 
of  the  election  laws  we  have  cited  was  systematically  and 
repeatedly  violated,  not  only  with  the  knowledge  of  these 
political  purists,  but  with  the  undisguised  cooperation  of 
most  of  them.  We  shall  presently  see  that  these  travelling 
statesmen  took  a  very  different  view  of  their  duty  when 
canvassing  the  votes  of  the  States  in  the  Electoral  Com 
mission. 

The  election  was  entirely  peaceable  throughout  the 
State.  In  the  volumes  of  testimony  subsequently  taken  by 
Congress  there  was  not  a  particle  of  evidence  that  on  the 
day  of  election  there  was  any  riot,  tumult,  or  intimidation 
at  a  single  polling  place  in  the  State.  The  election 
officers  Avere  all  Republicans,  and  in  accordance  with  the 
programme  of  the  Fifth-avenue  conspirators  they  had 


THE    CONSPIRACY   IN  LOUISIANA  37 

been  all  given  to  understand  that  their  political  future 
depended  entirely  upon  their  faithful  execution  of  their 
party  behests.1 

There  were  fifty-six  parishes,  exclusive  of  New  Orleans, 
in  the  entire  State,  and  nearly  one  thousand  polling  places. 
There  were  seventy-four  supervisors  and  assistant  super 
visors  of  registration,  and  three  commissioners  of  election 
for  each  poll,  all  selected  by  the  Republican  managers, 
practically  by  Governor  Kellogg. 

And  yet  when  the  returns  came  to  the  supervisors,  were 
consolidated,  and  made  ready  for  transmission  to  the  Re 
turning  Board,  only  two  supervisors  had  made  any  protests 
affecting  the  fairness  of  the  registration  or  the  peaceable 
and  honest  character  of  the  election.  In  but  one  instance 
was  intimidation  alleged.  The  exception  was  in  the  elev 
enth  ward  of  New  Orleans,  where  two  custom-house 
dependants  refused  to  sign  the  returns,  alleging  intimida 
tion.  This  was  a  mere  pretext  for  disfranchising  four 

1  The  nature  of  these  assurances  may  be  gathered  from  the  following 
circular  issued  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Republican  State  Committee  : 

HEADQUARTERS  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  OP  LOUISIANA, 
ROOMS  JOINT  COMMITTEE  ON  CANVASSING  AND  REGISTRATION, 
MECHANICS'  INSTITUTE,  Sept.  25,  1876. 
SUPERVISOR  OF  REGISTRATION,  PARISH  OP  ASSUMPTION,  LA.  : 

DEAR  SIR  :  It  is  well  known  to  this  committee  that,  from  examination 
of  the  census  of  1875,  the  Republican  vote  in  your  parish  is  2,200,  and  the 
Republican  majority  is  900. 

You  are  expected  to  register  and  vote  the  full  strength  of  the  Republi 
can  party  in  your  parish. 

Your  recognition  by  the  next  State  administration  •will  depend  upon  your 
doing  your  full  duty  in  the  premises  ;  and  you  will  not  be  held  to  have  done 
your  full  duty  unless  the  Republican  registration  in  your  parish  reaches 
2,200,  and  the  Republican  vote  is  at  least  2, 100. 

All  local  candidates  and   committees   are   directed   to   aid   you   to  the 
utmost  in  obtaining  the  result,  and  every  facility  is  and  will  be  afforded 
you;  but  you  must  obtain  the  results  called  for  herein  without  fail.     Once 
obtained,  your  recognition  will  be  ample  and  generous. 
Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

D.  J.  M.  A.  JEWETT, 

Secretary. 


38  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

hundred  and  twelve  respectable  citizens  living  in  the  best 
portion  of  the  residence  quarter  of  the  city.  The  poll  was 
surrounded  all  day  by  deputy  marshals  and  metropolitan 
police,  every  one  a  Republican ;  and  the  United  States 
supervisor,  also  a  Republican,  was  present  in  the  room 
where  the  votes  were  received. 

Of  the  two  instances  in  which  the  returns  of  the  super 
visors  stated  objections  to  the  votes  of  their  parishes  in 
conformity  with  the  law,  one  affected  only  the  votes  for 
justices  of  the  peace  and  constables,  and  the  other  was  a 
case  where  the  supervisor  declined  to  incorporate  the  votes 
of  two  polls  where  he  had  established  but  one,  and  the 
commissioners  without  authority  had  established  two. 

For  one  entire  week  after  the  election  the  Republican 
managers  in  New  Orleans  were  confident  that  their  plans 
had  succeeded,  and  that  they  had  carried  the  State.  They 
so  assured  their  friends  at  Washington.  But  to  make  as 
surance  doubly  sure,  they  instructed  their  supervisors  of 
registration  to  send  their  returns  to  New  Orleans  by  mail. 
The  law  required  them  to  bring  their  returns  in  person. 
As  they  came  in,  the  supervisors  deposited  them  at  the 
custom-house  instead  of  delivering  them,  as  the  law  re 
quired,  to  the  returning  officers.  Only  seventeen  supervis 
ors  of  registration  sent  their  packages,  as  the  law  required, 
by  mail ;  and  the  registered  packages  containing  these  re 
turns,  instead  of  being  delivered  to  the  returning  officers 
as  the  law  required,  wrere  stopped  at  the  post-office,  and 
retained  there  or  handed  over  to  the  Republican  managers. 

Had  there  been  intimidation,  of  course  it  could  only  have 
been  expected  from  the  Democrats  ;  but  what  had  the  Demo 
crats  to  gain  by  intimidation  ?  They  knew  that  the  Return 
ing  Board  had  been  established  expressly  to  "  annul  votes 
so  secured  and  provide  for  votes  so  prevented."  They 
knew,  too,  that  the  Returning  Board  in  1876  consisted  of 
the  same  white  members  as  in  1874,  when  in  the  parish  of 
Rapids,  where  Wells,  the  president  of  the  board  resided, 


THE    CONSPIRACY  IN  LOUISIANA  39 

the  whole  vote  of  the  parish  was  thrown  out  and  four  Re 
publican  members  of  the  Legislature  seated,  upon  a  secret 
affidavit  of  Wells  as  to  occurrences  in  that  parish  on  the 
day  of  the  election,  when  he  ivas  not  there.  The  members 
so  seated  had  not  claimed  to  have  been  elected,  and  subse 
quently,  upon  the  recommendation  of  the  congressional 
committee,  were  unseated,  and  the  conduct  of  Wells  was 
officially  denounced. 

The  most  and  the  best  the  Democrats  could  hope  for  was 
to  offer  the  Returning  Board  no  pretext  whatever  for  set 
ting  aside  the  election  because  of  intimidation,  knowing  as 
they  did  full  well  by  experience  that  such  pretext  would 
be  used  against  them  without  scruple  or  remorse. 

The  Returning  Board  consisted  of  J.  Madison  Wells, 
chairman,  Thomas  C.  Anderson,  Louis  M.  Kenner,  and  G. 
Cassanave,  the  last  two  colored.1 

The  Returning  Board  should  have  begun  their  labors  by 
the  express  terms  of  the  law  on  the  17th  of  November,  and 
should  have  remained  in  session  until  the  returns  had  been 

1  Nine  years  before,  General  Sheridan  had  preferred  charges  against 
Wells,  the  president  of  the  board,  while  he  was  provisional  governor  of 
Louisiana,  for  dishonesty,  and  subsequently  —  in  1877  —  Wells  was  in 
dicted  with  his  three  colleagues  by  the  grand  jury  of  Louisiana  for  falsely 
and  feloniously  uttering  and  publishing  as  true  a  certain  altered  and  forged 
and  counterfeited  public  record ;  to  wit,  the  consolidated  statement  of  votes 
of  the  parish  of  Vernon,  made  by  the  supervisor  of  registration  for  said 
parish,  whereby  falsely  and  feloniously  178  votes  were  added  to  the  num 
ber  of  votes  actually  cast  for  the  Republican  electors,  and  395  votes  were 
deducted  from  the  number  of  votes  actually  cast  for  the  Democratic  elec 
tors  by  the  voters  of  said  parish. 

Wells  took  refuge  in  the  swamps  north  of  New  Orleans  to  escape  arrest ; 
the  two  negroes  were  held  to  bail  in  $5,000  each;  and  Anderson  was  brought 
to  trial,  convicted,  and  sentenced  to  two  years  at  hard  labor  in  the  peniten 
tiary,  and  to  pay  the  costs  of  prosecution.  An  appeal  was  taken  by  his 
counsel  to  the  Supreme  Court,  where  he  was  finally  acquitted ;  not  on  the 
ground  that  he  had  not  been  guilty  of  all  the  forgeries  and  falsifications 
alleged,  but  on  the  technical  ground  that  the  consolidated  statement  "  made, 
such  as  was  required  to  be  made,  by  a  supervisor  of  registration,  was  not 
the  election  return  "  contemplated  by  the  Constitution,  and  therefore  its 
alteration  was  not  the  forgery  and  falsification  of  "  a  legal  record." 


40  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

compiled.  The  first  open  meeting  for  business  was  not 
held  until  the  20th.  The  interval  seems  to  have  been 
industriously  utilized  in  ascertaining  how  many  votes  were 
to  be  thrown  out  to  save  the  Hayes  electors,  and  from  what 
parishes  the  votes  should  be  taken.  Hence  the  direction  to 
the  supervisors  of  registration  to  bring  their  returns  in  per 
son,  instead  of  sending  them,  as  the  law  required,  by  mail. 
The  returns  were  opened  and  read  by  Anderson.  What  had 
been  going  on  between  their  delivery  and  their  opening 
may  be  inferred  from  the  following  incident  which  occurred 
at  the  session  on  the  25th  : 

It  had  been  remarked  by  the  Democrats  that  very  few  of 
the  returns  came  by  mail,  and  it  was  also  a  subject  of  com 
plaint  that  the  returns  from  many  parishes  had  not  yet 
been  received.  The  returns  from  De  Soto,  however,  had 
come  by  mail.  Anderson  in  submitting  them  to  the  Re 
turning  Board  was  quite  emphatic  in  stating  this  fact.  He 
read,  "Consolidated  statement  of  votes  of  the  parish  of 
De  Soto,"  and,  after  a  pause,  adding,  "  with  any  quantity  of 
affidavits  attached."  It  happened  that  Mr.  Burke  and  Mr. 
Gloin,  members  of  the  bar  of  Louisiana,  and  counsel  for 
the  Democrats,  were  in  the  room  at  this  time,  looking  over 
some  papers  in  parishes  laid  aside  as  contested.  Mr.  Burke 
asked,  "When  was  that  package  mailed?"  Anderson 
replied  that  it  was  mailed  at  Mansfield,  La.,  and  received 
on  the  18th.  "What  is  the  date  of  the  first  affidavit?" 
asked  Burke.  Anderson,  with  some  hesitation,  replied 
"November  25th."  —  "How  does  it  happen,"  asked  Mr. 
Gloin,  "that  affidavits  made  on  the  25th  were  in  a  package 
mailed  on  the  18th?"  After  considerable  confusion  and 
hesitation,  Abell,  the  secretary  of  the  Returning  Board, 
bethought  him  to  suggest  that  there  were  two  packages, 
one  received  on  the  18th  and  the  other  that  day ;  that  the 
first  contained  the  consolidated  statement  and  the  other  the 
affidavits.  Visiting  statesman  Stoughton  came  to  AbelFs 
rescue. 


THE    CONSPIRACY   IN   LOUISIANA  41 

S.    "What  return  is  this  received  to-day?" 

A.  "  The  return  before  the  board  now.  I  also  received 
a  small  package  on  the  18th,  which  I  presume  was  a  con 
solidated  statement." 

S.  "Was  the  evidence  in  the  package  you  received 
to-day?" 

A.    "Yes,  sir." 

S.    "Oh,  that  settles  it  —  merely  a  clerical  error." 

It  did  settle  it,  for  it  showed  conclusively  that  the  re 
turns  had  been  tampered  with ;  that  the  package  Anderson 
had  opened,  and  which  had  been  receipted  for  on  the 
18th,  was  the  one  from  which  he  took  the  consolidated 
statement  "  with  any  quantity  of  affidavits  attached."  The 
evening  before  this  exposure  occurred  there  had  been  a 
meeting  of  certain  persons  specially  interested  in  the  vote 
of  De  Soto  and  two  or  three  other  parishes.  Among  them 
were  George  L.  Smith,  the  candidate  for  Congress  from 
the  De  Soto  district ;  the  supervisors  of  De  Soto,  Bossier, 
and  Webster  parishes ;  and  D.  D.  Smith,  the  cashier  of  the 
post-office;  and  D.  J.  M.  A.  Jewett,  secretary  of  the  Re 
publican  committee,  who  had  made  himself  conspicuous  by 
recommending  the  Governor  to  appoint  no  supervisors  of 
registration  in  New  Orleans,  and  thus  threw  out  the  entire 
vote  of  the  principal  city  of  the  State.  At  this  gathering, 
the  cashier,  Smith,  unlocked  the  post-office  vault  and  took 
out  the  returns  from  De  Soto,  Bossier,  Caddo,  and  Webster. 
Those  from  Bossier,  Caddo,  and  Webster  had  been  brought 
by  the  supervisors  of  the  parishes  respectively,  or  by  some 
one  selected  by  them  for  that  purpose,  and  deposited  at  the 
post-office  for  safe  keeping  until  they  were  "  fixed  "  for  the 
uses  of  the  Returning  Board. 

The  returns  from  De  Soto,  though  they  had  come  by  mail, 
instead  of  going  to  the  Returning  Board  as  they  should 
have  done,  were  also  in  the  post-office  vault  and  under  the 
absolute  control  of  the  men  most  immediately  interested  in 
tampering  with  the  vote  of  that  parish.  The  purpose  of 


42  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

this  gathering  is  fully  set  forth  in  the  following  statement 
made  by  D.  J.  M.  A.  Jewett,  one  of  the  witnesses  to  its 
proceedings : 

"  C.  L.  Ferguson,  supervisor,  mailed  his  returns  per  reg 
istered  package  to  New  Orleans  from  Mansfield,  November 
14th ;  he  reached  New  Orleans  in  person  about  the  23d ;  on 
the  24th  I  received  from  George  L.  Smith,  in  person,  or 
from  some  person  in  his  interest,  a  notice  that  my  presence 
in  the  private  office  of  the  post-office  would  be  desirable 
about  9  or  10  P.M.  that  night.  On  my  arrival  I  found 
there  George  L.  Smith,  candidate  for  Congress,  fourth  dis 
trict;  D.  D.  Smith,  cashier  post-office;  C.  L.  Ferguson, 
supervisor  De  Soto  parish  ;  T.  H.  Hutton,  supervisor  Bos 
sier  parish  ;  John  S.  Morrow,  supervisor;  Fred  E.  Heath, 
candidate  for  House  of  Representatives ;  and  Samuel  Gard 
ner,  citizen  of  Webster  parish,  with  one  or  two  others,  I 
think,  whom  I  do  not  now  remember.  I  had  detailed  Mr. 
McArdle  to  attend,  and  he  was  there,  but  on  account  of 
objections  on  the  part  of  George  L.  Smith  he  was  sent 
away.  The  fact  whether  protest  had  been  made  or  not, 
etc.,  having  been  considered,  D.  D.  Smith  unlocked  the 
post-office  vault  and  produced  therefrom  the  returns  of 
De  Soto,  Bossier,  Caddo,  and  Webster.  Caddo,  it  was 
stated,  he  had  brought  down  himself.  Bossier  and  Webster 
he  had,  as  I  understood.  On  the  De  Soto  package  I  noticed 
the  post-mark  of  Mansfield  and  that  it  bore  evidence  of 
registration.  It  was,  however,  already  open.  It  was  un 
rolled  and  examined  by  Smith  and  myself.  It  icas  not  pos 
sible  to  create  a  Republican  majority  except  by  throwing  out 
polls  1,  3,  5,  7,  and  8.  These  were  selected  for  protest,  and 
Ferguson  was  asked  for  facts.  I  draughted  a  protest  based 
on  such  facts  as  he  had  knowledge  of,  either  personally  or 
from  information  received,  or  as  was  suggested  by  George 
L.  Smith,  or  by  the  well-known  conditions  of  the  parish. 
This  Ferguson  copied,  and  was  directed  to  take  the  same 
before  F.  A.  AYoolfley  for  administration  of  the  oath. 

"  It  was  suggested  by  me,  that  of  course  it  was  not  pos 
sible  to  attach  this  protest  and  various  affidavits  in  hand 
affecting  the  same  parish  (taken  before  Commissioner  Le- 
vissee,  in  Shreveport)  to  the  consolidated  statement  of 
votes,  this  having  come  forward  by  mail,  and  there  being  a 


THE    CONSPIRACY   IN   LOUISIANA  43 

disagreement  of  dates,  but  they  should  be  handed  or  sent  in 
under  section  43,  as  per  my  circular  letter  of  instructions. 
"  NotAvithstanding,  the  unbounded  stupidity  of  somebody 
rolled  these  up  in  the  original  package,  which,  restored  ap 
parently  to  its  original  condition,  went  forward  by  carrier 
to  the  board,  November  25." 

Such  was  Visiting  Statesman  Stoughton's  notion  of  a  cler 
ical  error  which  deprived  Tilden  of  his  majorities  at  five 
different  polls  in  a  single  parish. 

The  returns  from  ten  other  parishes  were  doctored  at  the 
same  time  and  in  like  manner. 


"The  returns  from  Bossier,"  says  Jewett,  "were  handed 
by  Captain  Hutton,  the  supervisor,  to  George  L.  Smith 
(the  aforesaid  candidate  for  Congress)  for  safe  keeping, 
upon  his,  Button's,  arrival  in  the  city,  and  were  by 
Smith  placed  in  the  vault  of  the  post-office. 

"  T.  H.  Hutton  had,  on  November  13  (the  day  that  he 
started  from  Bellevue  for  New  Orleans),  sworn  his  consoli 
dated  statement  of  votes  (popularly  known  as  the  returns) 
before  George  B.  Abercrombie,  clerk  of  court,  and  had 
deposited  with  said  clerk  a  copy,  as  required  by  law,  at  the 
date  named,  and  when  the  returns  were  examined  by  me  in 
the  post-office,  this  document  bore  in  the  space  for  remarks 
a  protest  of  the  Atkins  Landing  box  (No.  1)  and  no  other. 

"In  my  presence,  in  the  private  office  of  the  post-office, 
the  supervisor  interpolated  in  the  same  space  under  the 
protest  noted  above,  and  above  the  jurat,  a  second  protest, 
affecting  the  Red  Land  box  (No.  3).  There  is  no  question 
in  my  mind  but  that  the  protest  and  exclusion  of  this  box 
was  an  afterthought  which  first  took  shape  at  this  time 
(November  24)."" 

F.  M.  Grant,  who  brought  the  returns  from  Morehouse 
parish  about  a  week  before  the  25th  of  November,  to  which 
there  was  no  protest  attached,  declined,  says  Jewett,  "  the 
solicitations  of  Blan chard  to  make  one." 

Jewett  proceeds : 


44  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

rf  The  evening  of  that  or  the  following  day,  at  the  Gov 
ernor's  request,  Blanchard  and  myself  drove  him  out  to 
the  Governor's  residence,  where  we  had  a  conference  respect 
ing  his  parish  and  testimony.  This  being  without  effect, 
the  Governor  took  him  apart,  into  an  adjoining  room,  and 
they  conferred  together  some  time.  The  next  day  he  was 
again  interviewed  by  Kellogg  at  the  custom-house,  and  was 
(as  I  was  informed)  taken  to  see  the  visiting  statesmen. 
Blanchard  informed  me  that  Grant  was  bulldozed  by  these 
and  other  parties  for  several  days  before  he  would  make  the 
protest  which  he  made  November  18. 

"  At  this  time  I  purposely  avoided  even  seeing  the  visiting 
statesmen  except  as  I  met  them  casually  at  Kellogg's,  and 
it  was  arranged  between  myself  and  Mr.  Blanchard  that  he 
should  do  everything  which  would  require  the  slightest 
connection  with  them. 

"  This  was  done  because  it  was  not  proposed  that  Mr. 
Blanchard  should  testify  before  either  committee  of  Con 
gress  when  they  came,  as  was  expected,  and  I  desired 
to  be,  myself,  incapable  of  answering  any  inconvenient 
questions  which  might  be  propounded  to  me  touching  these 
gentlemen  and  their  connection  with  our  affairs." 


Grady,  the  supervisor  of  Ouachita  parish,  was  unwilling 
to  protest  the  election.  "lam  informed  by  Blanchard," 
says  Jewett,  "  that  Mr.  Grady  was  bulldozed  by  Kellogg, 
Sherman,  Garfield,  and  others  for  a  week  before  he  would 
sign  the  protest.  He  admitted  to  myself  that  he  could 
not  stand  the  pressure.  I  do  not  charge  or  believe  that 
any  fact  stated  by  Grady  was  untrue  or  unknown  to  him, 
at  least  by  common  report.  The  evidence  was  simply 
obtained  in  a  manner  which  deprived  it  of  any  legal  value." 

Clover,  the  supervisor  of  East  Baton  Rouge,  refused  to 
compile  the  statements  of  votes  cast  at  six  different  polls, 
through  a  wilful  disregard  or  ignorance  of  his  duty.  He 
was  "  sustained  in  his  refusal,"  says  Jewett,  "  by  Kellogg, 
Campbell,  and  others,  to  whose  advice  he  would  have 
yielded.  Mr.  Clover  undoubtedly  did  this  with  the 
promise  or  expectation  of  reward." 


THE    CONSPIRACY   IN  LOUISIANA  45 

"  It  may  be  said,"  Jewett  continues,  "  that  I  ought  to 
have  corrected  him.  This  it  would  have  been  useless  for 
me  to  do  against  the  influence  of  those  named,  and,  while 
Mr.  Blanchard  and  myself  were  practically  in  control  of 
the  State  registrar's  office,  and  while  Governor  Hahn 
would  have  undoubtedly  signed  an  order  (drawn  by  either 
of  us)  to  Mr.  Clover,  the  law  has  expressly  excepted 
supervisors  from  obedience  to  the  rulings  or  orders  of  the 
State  registrar  of  voters,  who  is  at  the  same  time  deemed 
their  administrative  chief." 

Similar  refusals  of  the  supervisors  of  Orleans  and  La- 
fourche  were  attended  with  similar  results. 

How  another  "  clerical  error "  in  East  Feliciana  was 
corrected  is  thus  stated  by  Jewett : 

"James  E.  Anderson,  supervisor,  refused,  upon  his  arri 
val  in  New  Orleans,  to  make  any  protest,  alleging  as  a 
reason  his  fear  of  being  murdered  if  he  did  so.  This,  in  his 
case,  I  did  not  believe ,  having  been  convinced  by  his  then 
secret  conduct  that  he  was  a  corrupt  scoundrel,  who  would 
protest  or  not,  betray  one  party  or  the  other  (he  was  un 
questionably  in  the  employ  of  both) ,  as  he  might  conceive 
to  be  for  his  interest. 

"  As  Governor  Kellogg  was  responsible  for  his  being  in 
his  parish  to  go  through  the  farce  of  an  election,  I  aban 
doned  to  Governor  Kellogg  the  task  of  getting  him  to 
testify  to  notorious  facts  unquestionably  within  his  knowl 
edge,  and  washed  my  hands  of  him  and  of  his  affairs.  I 
was  present  on  two  occasions  at  Kellogg's  house,  when 
Anderson  and  the  Governor  were  in  conference  respecting 
his  testimony. 

"On  the  10th  of  November,  immediately  after  his  arrival, 
Anderson  had  signed  a  protest  drawn  by  Hugh  J.  Campbell, 
which  the  following  day  he  distinctly  repudiated,  and  which 
he  stated  to  be  at  least  in  part  untrue.  This  protest  was 
not  finally  accepted  by  him  again  until,  as  I  was  informed, 
Anderson  had  been  promised  the  position  of  deputy  naval 
officer,  or  something  that  should  be  a  full  equivalent.  An 
derson  himself  informed  me  while  under  the  influence  of 
liquor  (about  November  20)  that  '  he  had  got  what  he  was 
after,'  by  which  remark  and  its  context  I  understood  that 


4:6  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

he  had  received  pledges  of  reward  for  his  testimony.  I 
have  also  been  informed  that  Messrs.  Sherman  and 
Garfield  assisted  in  bringing  Mr.  Anderson  '  to  listen  to 
reason.' " 

Jewett  says,  in  conclusion,  that  "  protests  and  evidence, 
such  as  it  was,  which  had  been  received  and  filed  up  to 
November  27,  excluded  votes  for  Packard  1,620  and  for 
Nichols  9,700,  leaving  Mr.  Packard  elected  by  a  clear 
majority,  with  a  Republican  majority  in  the  Senate  and 
House,  and  also  elected  three  Hayes  and  five  Tilden 
electors." 

Jewett  adds  that,  in  pursuance  of  a  "  conspiracy  to 
which  he  alleges  that  J.  M.  Wells,  Thomas  C.  Anderson, 
John  Sherman,  and  J.  A.  Garfield,  and  others,  were  parties, 
polls  were  excluded  in  the  parishes  of  Caldwell,  Natchito- 
ches,  Richland,  Catahoula,  Iberia,  Livingston,  and  Tangi- 
pahoa,  with  the  result,  and  for  the  purpose,  of  returning  as 
elected  five  Hayes  electors  who  were  otherwise  defeated ; 
that  the  consideration  of  this  conspiracy  was  the  absolute 
control  of  the  federal  patronage  within  the  State  of  Louisi 
ana  by  the  said  Wells  and  Anderson ;  that  the  evidence 
used  to  effect  the  object  of  the  conspiracy  was  manu 
factured  without  regard  to  actual  facts  and  with  the  knowl 
edge  of  the  several  conspirators ;  and  that  the  consideration 
to  be  given  to  said  Wells  and  Anderson  had  been  delivered 
up  to  date." 

But  the  Returning  Board  did  not  rely  entirely  upon  the 
flexible  consciences  of  supervisors.  On  the  28th  of 
November  Eliza  Pinkston,  a  disreputable  negress,  notori 
ous  in  three  States  for  mendacity  and  beastliness,  was 
borne  into  the  presence  of  the  board  and  of  "the  dis 
tinguished  gentlemen  of  national  reputation "  who  were 
there  helping  to  cultivate  and  inculcate  the  sanctities  of 
the  law.  She  swore  that  her  husband  had  been  taken  from 
his  house  in  the  night,  shot  seven  times,  run  through  and 
through  with  knives,  and  mutilated  in  various  ways ;  her 


THE    CONSPIRACY   IN   LOUISIANA  47 

child's  throat  cut  while  in  her  arms  ;  that  she  was  twice  shot 
and  her  person  violated  more  times  than  she  could  remem 
ber  ;  and  that  all  these  outrages  were  committed  by  young 
white  men  of  the  neighborhood,  many  of  whom  she  professed 
to  know  and  identify  —  one  of  them  a  well-known  and  highly 
respected  physician.  She  also  admitted  that  this  medical 
monster  came  the  day  following  all  these  outrages,  when 
sent  for,  and  dressed  her  wounds  and  ministered  to  her 
wants. 

There  were  scores  of  reputable  gentlemen  present  who 
could  have  exposed  this  preposterous  story,  but  they  were 
not  allowed  to  testify.  The  story  would  answer  the  con- 
coctors  of  it  better  as  it  stood.  Eliza  Pinkston  lived  in 
Ouachita  parish,  which  gave  a  large  Democratic  majority. 
The  board  Avanted  a  pretext  for  throwing  it  out,  and  here 
they  had  it  in  a  dramatic  and  thrilling  piece  of  evidence 
to  which  the  telegraph  and  the  press  would  delight  in  giv 
ing  the  widest  circulation.  Absurd  as  the  story  was,  it 
was  deemed  of  sufficient  importance  for  a  committee  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  to  be  sent  down  to  Louisiana 
to  investigate  it.  It  was  ascertained  that  her  statement 
that  her  husband  had  been  shot  or  mutilated  was  a  fabrica 
tion  ;  that  the  throat  of  her  child  had  not  been  cut,  and 
that  there  was  no  mark  of  violence  on  its  body  except  a 
slight  contusion  on  its  head ;  that  the  men  whom  she 
charged  with  these  outrages  could  not  possibly  have  been 
in  her  neighborhood  on  the  night  in  question ;  that  she  had 
made  an  affidavit  in  Monroe  county  for  use  before  the  Re 
turning  Board,  in  which  she  charged  the  crime  of  murder 
and  other  outrages  on  other  persons,  which  was  sent  by 
the  supervisor  of  Ouachita  to  the  Returning  Board  Novem 
ber  23,  but  it  was  suppressed  and  withdrawn,  and  another 
made  in  New  Orleans,  December  2,  was  substituted  for  it. 

It  also  was  ascertained  that  the  Returning  Board  had 
falsified  its  own  record  of  the  receipt  of  the  returns  from 
Ouachita.  The  secretary  announced  that  they  had  been 


48  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

received   November   24,  but  when   opened,    a   letter  was 
found  addressed  to  Mr.  Abell,  saying : 

"  Enclosed  please  find  affidavit  of  Eliza  Pinkston,  which  I 
received  too  late  to  file  with  my  returns.  Please  see  that 
it  is  brought  in  with  the  other  evidence  filed  with  my 
returns." 

This  letter  was  dated  November  23. 

The  character  of  this  woman  whose  testimony  was  in 
voked  "  to  inculcate  and  cultivate  obedience  to  law  "  was 
thus  summarized  by  the  congressional  committee : 

"The  character  of  Eliza  Pinkston,  as  developed  before 
your  sub-committee  to  the  fullest  extent,  was  such  as  to 
render  her  a  fit  instrument  in  the  hands  of  designing  men. 
She  had  been  charged  with  the  murder  of  the  child  of  per 
sons  with  whom  she  had  but  recently  quarrelled.  The 
child  died  of  poison.  Eliza  Pinkston,  then  known  as  Liz 
zie  Finch,  in  Morehouse  parish,  was  arrested,  and  acquitted 
only  because  the  main  witness  to  the  crime  was  too  young 
to  understand  the  nature  of  an  oath.  The  general  impres 
sion  was  that  she  was  guilty.  When  residing  in  Union 
parish,  she  had  shamefully  beaten  an  old  woman  living 
with  her,  death  ensuing  in  a  few  days  after.  She  had 
abandoned  one  of  her  young  children,  leaving  it  to  starve 
to  death  in  a  fence  corner.  Another  she  made  way  with 
shortly  after  its  birth.  She  was  an  habitual  abortionist. 
She  was  in  perpetual  quarrel.  Her  testimony  had  been  so 
effectually  impeached  in  the  courts  of  Morehouse  parish 
that  the  Kepublican  district  attorney  refused  to  call  her  as 
a  witness.  Everybody  who  knew  her  considered  her  a 
desperate  character.  Eye-witnesses  proved  that  she  lived 
with  her  husband  on  very  bad  terms.  She  was  about  to 
kill  him  at  one  time  when  she  supposed  him  asleep.  Upon 
another  occasion  she  assaulted  him  with  an  axe,  intending 
to  kill  him.  He  was  in  perpetual  dread  of  harm,  as  wit 
nesses  testified.  She  was  ugly,  vulgar,  indecent,  and  lewd 
beyond  the  worst." 

The  rest  of  this  description  I  am  obliged  to  suppress  as 
too  indecent  for  these  pages.1 

1  Report  156,  Part  1,  House  of  Rep.  44th  Cong.  2d  Sess.  pp.  45-G. 


THE    CONSPIRACY  IN   LOUISIANA  49 

According  to  this  poor  wretch's  story,  which  Sherman, 
Garfield,  Stoughton,  and  Matthews  professed  to  believe,  a 
number  of  malefactors  had  been  guilty  of  a  series  of  hide 
ous  crimes,  not  only  against  the  laws  of  the  State  of  Lou 
isiana,  but  against  the  laws  of  the  United  States.  Why 
were  not  steps  ever  taken  by  either  jurisdiction  to  arrest  or 
punish  any  one  of  the  alleged  criminals?  The  arrest,  trial, 
and  hanging  of  a  half-dozen  of  these  murderers,  if  there 
were  any,  would  have  been  an  object-lesson  far  more  effica 
cious  for  cultivating  and  inculcating  obedience  to  law  in 
Louisiana,  than  employing  the  testimony  of  such  an  out 
cast  to  compass  the  usurpation  of  the  presidency. 

Towards  the  end  of  November  the  Returning  Board 
thought  they  had  rid  themselves  of  enough  Democratic 
votes,  by  the  methods  of  which  we  have  given  only  a  com 
paratively  few  examples,  to  ensure  the  election  of  Hayes,  of 
Packard  for  governor,  and  a  Legislature  that  would  be 
shameless  enough  to  send  Governor  Kellogg  to  the  United 
States  Senate.  But  when  they  canie  to  figure  up  the  re 
turns  they  found  that  they  were  still  astray  in  their  calcula 
tions  and  that  the  guillotine  must  again  be  set  to  work ; 
that  they  must  throw  out  polls  in  nine  other  parishes,  and 
the  entire  vote  of  East  Feliciana  and  Grant  parish.  They 
threw  out,  in  addition,  sixty-nine  polls  from  twenty-two 
other  parishes,  and  refused  to  include  the  polls  which  the 
supervisors  of  East  Baton  Rouge,  Lafayette,  Lafourche, 
and  the  assistant  supervisors  of  three  wards  in  New  Orleans 
had,  without  any  warrant  of  law,  wantonly  refused  to  com 
pile. 

In  all,  13,214  Democratic  electors  were  disfranchised  and 
2,415  Republican.  The  highest  number  of  votes  "  actually 
cast"  for  a  Democratic  elector  was  83,817,  and  for  a  Re 
publican  elector,  77,332.  Five  of  the  Republican  electors 
ran  behind  the  vote  of  their  colleagues  1,141.  The  aver 
age  majority  for  the  Democratic  electors  was  7,116. 

1  H.  R.  Misc.  Doc.  No.  34,  Part  2,  44th  Cong.  2d  Sess.  pp.  790-794. 
VOL.  II.— 4 


50  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

The  extent  to  which  the  people  of  Louisiana  were  de 
frauded  by  the  Keturning  Board  and  their  accomplices  can 
be  determined  by  another  and  very  simple  test,  which  no 
amount  of  perjury  nor  partisanship  can  assail. 

We  have  seen  that  the  pretext  for  throwing  out  the  re 
turns  from  most  of  the  disfranchised  parishes  was  intimida 
tion  of  the  negroes,  by  which  they  were  prevented  from 
registering  and  voting.  The  rejections  from  other  causes 
were  insignificant  in  number,  and,  in  their  influence  upon 
the  result,  without  importance. 

The  names  of  registered  voters  for  the  entire  State  in 
1876,  according  to  the  statistics  of  the  State  register's 
office,  were  207,622,  of  which  there  were  of 

Colored 115,268 

White  .  .  92,354 


Majority  of  colored  voters       .         .         .         .  23,914 

According  to  the  census  of  1870,  the  colored  males  of 
twenty-one  years  and  upwards  were  86,913,  and  white 
males  of  like  ages,  87,066. 

The  colored  class  included  Chinese  and  Indians,  who 
had  no  votes. 

In  1880  the  white  males  of  twenty-one  years  and  over 

numbered 108,810 

Colored  males  of  like  age  ....  107,970 
showing  that  both  classes  had  increased  in  about  the  same 
proportion,  and  their  relative  proportion  could  not  have  ma 
terially  varied  in  1876.  If  from  colored  males  the  Chinese 
Indians,  and  foreign-born  negroes  are  deducted,  manifestly 
the  colored  voters  could  not  have  exceeded  the  white. 
Professor  Chaille,  who  had  made  a  special  study  of  vital 
statistics  in  Louisiana,  expressed  the  opinion  that  there  was 
a  small  majority  of  white  voters  in  the  State.  But,  as  we 
have  seen,  there  were  22,914  more  colored  than  white 
voters  registered  in  the  State  in  1876.  Five  years  after, 
and  five  years  before,  the  white  voters  were  in  an  undis- 


THE    CONSPIRACY   IN  LOUISIANA  51 

puted  majority.  Where  did  these  22,914  colored  voters 
come  from,  and  what  had  become  of  the  army  of  negroes 
who  were  alleged  to  have  been  afraid  to  register?  These 
figures  prove  beyond  a  reasonable  doubt  that  the  names  of 
over  20,000  names  were  registered  that  had  only  this  nomi 
nal  existence. 

Again,  by  the  census  of  1870  the  white  population  of 
the  parish  of  New  Orleans  was  .  .  .  140,923 
Of  the  negro 50,456 

Whites  over  negroes       .....  90,467 

By  the  census  of  1880  the  white  population  was  158,369 
The  negro 57,619 

White  over  colored 100,750 

When  the  registration  was  completed  in  1876,  the 
57,619  negro  population  was  found  to  yield  23,495  voters, 
and  the  140,923  whites,  only  34,913  voters. 

Again,  the  State  census  of  1875  gives  an  excess  of 
7,210  colored  females  over  colored  males  in  the  parish  of 
New  Orleans ;  that  is,  in  all,  36,013  females.  Deducting 
these  from  the  total  of  57,619,  there  remained  but  21,597 
colored  voters  in  the  whole  State  in  1880.  The  number 
was  doubtless  somewhat  less  in  1876,  and  yet  here  were 
at  least  2,891  more  colored  names  registered  than  there 
could  have  been  colored  voters  in  the  parish. 

But  not  content  with  fraudulently  registering  nearly  if 
not  quite  three  thousand  fictitious  names,  the  Kellogg  man 
agers  deliberately  struck  off  from  the  registration  lists  the 
names  of  7,738  white  voters.1  And  this  was  the  way  it 
was  done  : 

With  the  cooperation  of  Marshall,  Pitkin,  and  the  em 
ployees  in  the  post-office,  some  30,000  circulars  were  sent 
out  by  the  letter-carriers,  with  instructions  to  return  all 

1  H.  R.  Misc.  Doc.  No.  34,  Part  2,  44th  Cong.  2d  Sess.  pp.  1031,  1032, 
1033. 


52  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

not  personally  served.  About  11,000  were  so  returned. 
The  registration  lists  were  then  secretly  taken  to  the  cus 
tom-house,  where  the  supervisors  were  directed  to  strike 
off  the  names  of  all  not  personally  served. 

Professor  Chaille,  after  a  careful  study  of  all  available 
data,  has  expressed  his  conviction  that  an  honest  and  com 
plete  registration  of  the  voters  of  New  Orleans  would  have 
given  about  40,584  white  and  13,500  negro  voters,  instead 
of  22,495  ;  and,  allowing  for  reasonable  contingencies,  such 
as  absence,  sickness,  etc.,  there  ought  not  to  have  been  of 
these  more  than  12,000  registered. 

But  why  accumulate  further  evidence  of  the  nefarious 
processes  by  which  this  foul  conspiracy  against  the  rights 
of  a  sovereign  State  were  consummated? 

It  is  enough  to  have  shown  that  the  Tilden  and  Hendricks 
electors  were  chosen  in  Louisiana  and  Florida  by  large 
popular  majorities. 

That  many  thousand  Democratic  voters  were  fraudu 
lently  disfranchised. 

That  in  no  single  instance  had  the  commissioners  of  elec 
tion  shown  or  even  alleged  intimidation  of  voters. 

That  there  was  not  from  a  single  polling-place  in  the  State 
a  statement  of  the  vote  returned  in  form  required  by  law. 

That  no  one  of  the  supervisors  of  registration  had  made 
objections  to  the  registration  of  voters  for  a  single  voting- 
place  in  the  form  required  by  law,  nor  had  any  of  them 
reported  intimidation  or  violence. 

That  four  supervisors  had  assumed  judicial  powers, 
which  the  law  conferred  only  upon  the  returning  officers, 
and  by  refusing  to  compile  had  thus  rejected  the  commis 
sioners'  returns  from  twelve  polling-places  3  while  three 
assistant  supervisors  for  wards  in  New  Orleans  had  illegally 
refused  to  consolidate  returns  from  three  polls.1 

1  Those  who  may  desire  to  probe  this  iniquity  to  its  profoundest  deep 
are  referred  to  the  investigations  made  by  committees  on  the  43d,  44th, 
and  45th  Congresses,  and  to  the  more  convenient  compendium  of  A.  M. 
Gibson,  entitled  "  A  Political  Crime,"  to  which  I  have  been  greatly  in 
debted  in  making  this  synopsis  of  the  evidence  submitted  to  Congress. 


REWARDS    OF    THE    CONSPIRATORS  53 

The  distinguished  statesmen  who  had  assisted  at  this 
carnival  of  lawlessness  not  only  found  nothing  in  the  pro 
ceedings  to  rebuke,  but  did  not  scruple  to  share  in  the 
loot,  presumably  in  proportion  to  the  importance  of  their 
respective  services  in  securing  it. 

Senator  Sherman  was  made  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
then  quite  the  most  important  office  in  the  President's 
gift. 

Stanley  Matthews  was  nominated  to  a  seat  on  the  bench 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  The  Senate 
declined  to  confirm  him.  He  was  renominated,  in  1881, 
by  President  Garfield,  who  had  been  one  of  his  coadjutors 
in  New  Orleans,  and  through  the  influence  common  to  all 
new  administrations,  with  all  its  federal  patronage  in 
reserve,  the  opposition  to  him  in  the  Senate  was  overcome, 
and  he  was  confirmed. 

James  A.  Garfield,  who  had  his  headquarters  in  the 
custom-house,  where  the  affidavits  were  manufactured  dur 
ing  the  sessions  of  the  Returning  Board,  was  elected  to  the 
United  States  Senate  by  an  arrangement  with  Stanley 
Matthews,  and  subsequently  succeeded  Hayes  as  the  Re 
publican  candidate  for  the  presidency. 

William  M.  Evarts,  who  in  1875  had  denounced  the 
illegal  organization  of  the  Louisiana  House  of  Representa 
tives  with  the  aid  of  the  military,  and  all  the  proceedings 
and  acts  of  that  body  as  well  as  of  the  Returning  Board  of 
1874,  went  to  New  Orleans  in  1876,  and  lent  the  weight 
of  his  personal  and  professional  influence  to  assist  —  uncon 
sciously,  I  would  fain  believe  —  the  men  who  were  harvest 
ing  the  crop  of  crime  he  had  denounced  the  planting.  He 
subsequently  was  the  leading  counsel  for  Hayes  before  the 
Electoral  Commission.  He  received  the  office  of  Secretary 
of  State. 

E.  W.  Stoughton,  who  prepared  the  report  to  the  Presi 
dent  justifying  the  conduct  and  fulsornely  eulogizing  the 
character  of  the  worthless  creatures  who  constituted  the 


54  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

Returning  Board,1  was  rewarded  with  the  mission  to 
Russia. 

It  required  the  disfranchisement  of  a  less  number  of  the 
citizens  of  Louisiana  to  count  in  Packard  as  governor 
than  to  count  in  the  Hayes  electors ;  but  then  a  governor 
has  less  patronage  than  a  president  to  bestow,  and  it  be 
came  necessary  to  abandon  Packard  to  secure  a  sufficient 
number  of  Southern  Democratic  votes  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  to  ensure  the  ratification  of  the  decision 
of  the  Electoral  Commission,  of  which  I  shall  have  to  speak 
presently.  Packard  was  reconciled  to  his  fate  by  receiving 
the  consulate  at  Liverpool,  a  place  which,  whether  it  was 
worth  fifteen  or  thirty  thousand  dollars  a  year,  depended 
mainly  upon  the  character  of  the  man  who  held  it. 

Kellogg  was  rewarded  for  his  services  with  a  seat  in  the 
United  States  Senate, —  by  what  means  may  be  inferred  from 
the  fact  that  of  the  members  of  the  Legislature  who  voted 
for  him,  eight  senators,  three  officers  of  the  Senate,  thirty- 
two  members  of  the  House,  and  four  officers  of  the  House, 
making  forty-seven  in  all,  received  lucrative  appointments 
from  the  federal  government,  and,  curiously  enough,  all  of 
these  patriots  received  their  appointments  from  the  de 
partment  of  which  John  Sherman  was  the  chief. 

Of  the  persons  connected  with  the  canvass,  election,  and 
negotiations  in  Louisiana,  sixty-nine  were  appointed  to 
offices,  and  all  but  sixteen  of  these  were  treasury  appoint 
ments. 

Wells,  the  president  of  the  Returning  Board,  had  one 
son  appointed  deputy  surveyor  at  New  Orleans ;  another 
son  and  a  son-in-law,  to  clerkships  in  the  same  institution, 
on  salaries  ranging  from  $1,400  to  $1,600  per  annum. 

Anderson, Wells'  white  colleague  on  the  Returning  Board, 
was  made  deputy  collector  of  the  port  of  New  Orleans ;  his 
son,  C.  B.  Anderson,  was  made  a  clerk  in  the  custoni- 

1  This  is  known  as  the  Sherman  report,  because  his  is  the  first  name 
signed. 


REWARDS    OF    THE    CONSPIRATORS  55 

house,  on  a  salary  of  $1,400;  his  son's  father-in-law, 
auditor,  on  a  salary  of  $2,500  ;  and  his  son's  brother-in-law, 
clerk,  on  a  salary  of  $1,200. 

Kenner,  one  of  the  negroes  on  the  Returning  Board,  was 
appointed  deputy  naval  officer  of  the  same  port ;  one  of  his 
brothers  was  appointed  to  a  $1,600  clerkship,  and  another 
brother,  a  laborer,  at  a  salary  of  $600. 

Cassanave,  the  other  colored  member  of  the  board,  had 
a  brother  who  was  an  undertaker  appointed  to  a  place  in 
the  custom-house.  His  own  expenses,  incurred  in  defend 
ing  himself  and  colleagues  in  New  Orleans  against  criminal 
charges,  were  defrayed  in  part  by  President  Hayes  and 
Secretary  Sherman. 

Woodward,  clerk  of  the  Returning  Board,  who  assisted 
in  falsifying  the  election  returns,  was  appointed  to  a  $1,400 
clerkship,  and  was  subsequently  promoted  to  an  assistant 
deputy  surveyorship,  at  a  salary  of  $1,600. 

Abell,  the  secretary  of  the  Returning  Board,  was  ap 
pointed  to  a  $1,600  clerkship  in  the  custom-house. 

Judge  G.  B.  Davis,  a  clerk  of  the  Returning  Board, 
and  another  man  of  equally  easy  virtue  with  any  of  his 
associates,  also  found  an  asylum  in  the  custom-house. 

Green,  a  colored  minute  clerk  of  the  board,  in  due  time 
reached  the  same  port,  and  afterwards  was  appointed  an 
inspector,  at  $3  per  day. 

Charles  Hill,  another  clerk  of  the  Returning  Board,  and 
therefore  possessed  of  perilous  secrets,  was  appointed  store 
keeper,  at  a  salary  of  $1,460. 

It  is  a  fact  not  without  significance  that  none  of  Presi 
dent  Hayes'  cabinet  ministers,  save  his  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  availed  themselves  of  the  privilege  of  rewarding 
any  of  the  members  of  the  Returning  Board  or  of  their 
zealous  subordinates. 

Whether  these  dignities  and  emoluments  were  worth 
what  they  cost ;  whether  the  honors  for  which  they  were 
beholden  to  the  frauds  and  forgeries  of  the  four  pied  and 


56  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

speckled  knaves  who  constituted  the  Louisiana  Returning 
Board  in  1876  are  such  as  their  offspring  and  friends 
will  take  pride  in;  and  whether  their  names  will  be 
cherished  by  their  countrymen  for  their  active  and  passive 
parts  in  placing  a  man  in  the  presidential  chair  who  was 
not  elected  to  that  office  by  the  people, — are  questions 
which  may  be  safely  left  to  the  final  arbitrament  of  history. 
"How  far,"  said  the  Hon.  Clarkson  N.  Potter,1  in  his  ad 
mirable  and  temperate  report,  —  the  more  admirable  because 
so  temperate, — "  the  controlling  visiting  statesmen  like  Mr. 
Sherman  really  believed  there  was  any  justification  for  the 
rejection  of  Democratic  votes  by  the  Returning  Board,  men 
will  never  agree.  We  are  apt  to  believe  in  the  right  of 
what  we  earnestly  desire.  Men  who  thought  the  welfare 
of  the  country  depended  upon  the  continuation  in  power  of 
the  Republican  party  would  naturally  have  been  disposed  to 
consider  almost  anything  justified  to  retain  it  there.  To 
us  it  seems  impossible  that  the  flagrant  and  atrocious  con 
duct  of  the  Returning  Board  was  not  realized  above  all  by 
the  men  of  most  political  experience,  or  that  the  most  dan 
gerous  and  outrageous  political  fraud  of  the  age  was  not 
assisted  and  advised  by  those  who  next  proceeded  to  take 
possession  of  its  best  fruits." 

1  Chairman  of  the  select  committee  appointed  by  the  House  of  Represent 
atives  u  to  inquire  into  the  alleged  fraudulent  canvass  and  return  of  votes 
at  the  last  presidential  election  in  the  States  of  Louisiana  and  Florida." 


CHAPTER  III 

The  electoral  count  of  1877  —  Senator  Morton's  scheme  —  Tilden's  history 
of  the  presidential  counts  —  President  Grant  concedes  Tilden's  election 
—  Electoral  commission  created  —  Disapproved  of  by  Tilden  —  Re 
fuses  to  raffle  for  the  presidency  —  Horatio  Seymour's  speech  before 
the  New  York  electors  —  Dr.  Franklin's  advice  to  his  son  —  The  Florida 
case  —  The  Louisiana  case  —  The  Oregon  case  —  Conflicting  decisions 
of  the  commission  —  The  commission  for  sale  —  The  forged  certificates 
from  Louisiana  —  Decision  of  the  commission  condemned  by  the  House 
of  Representatives  —  Letter  of  Charles  Francis  Adams  —  The  Fraud 
Blazon  —  Tilden's  reply  —  Protest  of  the  Democratic  minority  of  the 
electoral  commission  —  Thurman  and  Bayard  —  James  Russell  Lowell. 

AT  the  meeting  of  Congress  in  December  the  absorbing 
question  was  the  counting  of  the  electoral  vote.  It  had 
been  usual  for  Congress  to  define  in  advance  the  manner 
in  which  this  duty  should  be  discharged.  In  the  session  of 
1864-5  Congress  provided  that  no  electoral  vote  objected 
to  by  either  House  of  Congress  should  be  counted  except 
by  the  concurrent  votes  of  both  Houses.  This  became 
notorious  as  "the  22d  rule."  It  was  re-adopted  at  the 
three  successive  electoral  counts  of  1865,  1869,  and  1873. 
This  rule,  after  having  been  in  force  for  three  successive 
elections,  was  abandoned  by  a  resolution  of  the  Senate  in 
December,  1875,  on  motion  of  Senator  Edmunds,  at  whose 
instance  the  Senate  adopted  "  the  rules  of  that  body  and 
the  joint  rules  of  the  two  Houses  except  the  22d  joint 
rule  heretofore  in  use."  The  House  of  Representatives  was 
at  this  time  largely  Democratic,  and,  had  the  22d  joint 
rule  continued  in  force,  any  electoral  votes  which  it  re 
fused  to  count  would  have  been  rejected.  The  rule,  which 
was  of  doubtful  constitutionality,  had  been  originally 
adopted,  and  subsequently  renewed,  for  partisan  ends ;  for 
partisan  ends  it  was  now  dispensed  with  by  the  Senate, 


58  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDE N 

thus  leaving  the  two  Houses  without  any  rule  to  govern 
them  for  counting  the  electoral  votes  in  February,  1877. 

Prior  to  1865,  and  before  the  adoption  of  the  22d  joint 
rule  above  referred  to,  it  had  been  the  practice  of  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress,  a  little  in  advance  of  the  day  fixed  by 
the  Act  of  1792  for  counting  the  votes, — the  second 
Wednesday  of  February,  — to  agree  upon  the  place  of  meet 
ing  for  the  discharge  of  this  duty  and  the  order  of  proced 
ure.  Various  efforts  had  been  made  from  time  to  time,  by 
one  House  or  the  other,  previous  to  the  adoption  of  the  22d 
rule,  to  appropriate  to  itself  the  power  to  determine  the 
validity  of  electoral  votes ;  but  all  had,  for  one  reason  or 
another,  proved  abortive.  The  22d  joint  rule,  adopted  by 
the  Republicans  in  1865,  assumed  for  the  first  time  the 
right  to  reject  electoral  votes,  as  the  prerogative  of  either 
House. 

When  the  certificates  of  the  electors  of  the  several  States 
came  to  be  opened  at  Washington  in  1877,  it  appeared 
that  the  certificates  of  thirty-four  States  were  uncontested, 
but  that  the  remaining  four  were  to  be  contested.  These 
were  the  certificates  from  the  States  of  South  Carolina, 
Florida,  Louisiana,  and  Oregon.  The  electoral  vote  of  the 
uncontested  States  was  so  distributed  that  the  fate  of  the 
presidential  candidates  depended  upon  the  electoral  vote  of 
the  four  contested  States. 

Congress  having  failed  to  make  any  provision  before 
hand,  the  mode  of  procedure  in  counting  the  electoral  vote 
was  the  first  question  to  be  dealt  with. 

The  Republicans  had  the  control  of  the  Senate,  the 
Democrats,  of  the  House.  The  Constitution  provided  that 
"the  President  of  the  Senate  shall,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Senate  and  the  House  of  Representatives,  open  all  the 
certificates,  and  the  votes  shall  then  be  counted."  Senator 
Morton  took  the  ground  that  the  President  of  the  Senate 
should  be  invested  with  plenary  authority  "  to  determine 
all  disputes  relative  to  certificates  of  the  electoral  votes ;  to 


SCHEME    FOR    COUNTING    ELECTORAL    VOTES       59 

count  them  and  to  declare  the  result,  which  declaration 
was  to  be  accepted  as  final,  conclusive,  and  irrevocable." 
The  President  of  the  Senate  at  that  time,  Thomas  W. 
Ferry,  of  Michigan,  owed  that  position  to  his  party  sub 
serviency  rather  than  to  his  fame  as  a  statesman.  The 
adoption  of  such  a  rule  would  have  been  equivalent  to 
pronouncing  Hayes  President  and  making  the  counting  of 
the  electoral  vote  an  idle  ceremony.  To  make  it  such  was 
obviously  the  motive  of  those  who  advocated  it. 

The  Constitution  assigned  to  the  President  of  the  Senate 
no  other  specific  duty  but  to  open  the  certificates.  Beyond 
that  he  was  but  one  of  three  coordinate  bodies  authorized 
to  count  the  votes,  settle  controversies,  and  declare  the 
result,  as  had  been  virtually  the  unbroken  practice  from 
the  foundation  of  the  government.  A  year  had  not  elapsed 
since  the  same  Senator  Morton  had  introduced  an  electoral- 
count  bill  which  required  that  the  affirmative  action  of 
both  Houses  of  Congress  should  be  required  to  reject  any 
certificate  of  electoral  votes,  and  if  more  than  one  return 
was  made,  only  that  one  should  "  be  counted,  which  the 
two  Houses,  acting  separately,  shall  decide  to  be  the  true 
and  valid  return."  Nothing  had  occurred  to  the  Constitu 
tion  which  in  the  spring  of  1876  required  the  concurrence 
of  the  two  Houses,  acting  separately,  to  count  an  electoral 
vote,  the  President  of  the  Senate  to  the  contrary  notwith 
standing,  that  in  the  winter  of  the  same  year  could  transfer 
this  power  to  the  President  of  the  Senate,  the  two  Houses 
of  Congress  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  That  is, 
nothing  but  a  presidential  election  which  begat  the  tempta 
tion  to  strike  the  House  of  Representatives  with  impotence 
for  the  purpose  of  ensuring  the  success  of  the  Republican 
candidates.  The  inconsistency  of  these  positions,  and  the 
absurdity  of  attempting  to  reconcile  the  Constitution  with 
two  modes  of  procedure  so  diametrically  opposed  to  each 
other,  did  not  prevent  Morton's  scheme  finding  favor  with 
his  partisans  in  Congress,  who  seemed  to  have  reached  the 


60  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

conviction  that  the  end  of  defeating  Tilden  would  sanctify 
any  means  necessary  to  accomplish  it,  and  that  the  Con 
stitution  itself  should  yield  to  such  an  exigency.  Such 
threatening  proportions  did  this  scheme  assume  that  Mr. 
Tilden  devoted  more  than  a  month  to  the  preparation  of  a 
complete  history  of  the  electoral  counts  from  the  foundation 
of  the  government,1  to  show  it  to  have  been  the  unbroken 
usage  of  Congress,  not  of  the  President  of  the  Senate,  to 
count  the  electoral  votes.2 

What  influence,  if  any,  this  publication  had  upon  the 
ultimate  abandonment  of  Senator  Morton's  scheme  it  is 
difficult  to  say.  Probably  not  much,  for  it  taught  the 
Senators  nothing  of  which  they  were  ignorant ;  but  about 
this  time  the  leaders  of  that  body  became  aware  that  Presi 
dent  Grant  did  not  believe  that  Hayes  was  elected,  and 
several  prominent  Republican  members  of  Congress,  among 
them  Senator  Conkling,  of  New  York,  were  under  the  same 
impression,  and  could  not  be  relied  upon  to  assist  in  up 
setting  one  of  the  most  venerable  traditions  of  the  govern 
ment,  nor  in  becoming  accomplices  in  the  fraud  to  which 
it  was  intended  to  be  contributory. 

President  Grant  seems  at  no  time  to  have  had  any  doubt 
about  the  electoral  vote  of  Louisiana  belonging  to  Tilden 
and  Hendricks,  or  of  its  being  so  ultimately  decided.  In 
some  reminiscences  of  the  late  George  "W.  Childs,  pub 
lished  first  in  the  "  Philadelphia  Ledger"  in  1885,  and 
subsequently  in  a  volume,  that  gentleman  said : 

"  Just  before  General  Grant  started  on  his  journey  around 

1  The  Presidential  Counts  ;  a  complete  official  record  of  the  proceedings  at 
the  counting  of  the  electoral  votes  in  all  the  elections  of  President  and  Vice- 
President  of  the   United  States ;  together  with  all  congressional  delates 
incident  thereto  or  to  proposed  legislation  on  that  subject ;  with  an  analyti 
cal  introduction.     New  York,  D.  Appleton  $  Co.,  IS 77. 

2  The  first  election  of  George  Washington,  in  1789,  was  only  an  apparent 
exception.     The  election  was  unanimous,  the  procedure  a  formality  and 
without  debate  or  deliberation.    See  Presidential  Counts ;  also  D.  D.  Fields, 
"  The  Electoral  Vote  of  76,"  p.  5. 


ORIGIN    OF    THE    ELECTORAL    COMMISSION       61 

the  world,  he  was  spending  some  days  with  me,  and  at 
dinner  with  Mr.  A.  J.  Drexel,  Col.  A.  K.  McClure,  and 
myself,  General  Grant  reviewed  the  contest  for  the  creation 
of  the  Electoral  Commission,  and  the  contest  before  and  in 
the  commission,  very  fully  and  with  rare  candor ;  and  the 
chief  significance  of  his  view  was  in  the  fact,  as  he  stated 
it,  that  he  expected  from  the  beginning,  until  the  final 
judgment,  that  the  electoral  vote  of  Louisiana  would  be 
awarded  to  Tilden.  He  spoke  of  South  Carolina  and  Ore 
gon  as  justly  belonging  to  Hayes  ;  of  Florida,  as  reasonably 
doubtful;  and  of  Louisiana,  as  for  Tilden." 

Col.  A.  K.  McClure  and  the  late  A.  J.  Drexel,  who  were 
also  guests  of  Mr.  Childs  on  this  occasion,  have  confirmed 
his  report  of  this  conversation. 

The  plan,  therefore,  of  gagging  the  House  of  Represent 
atives  in  the  electoral  college  received  no  encouragement 
from  President  Grant.  Whether  he  would  have  ever  made 
any  serious  opposition  to  such  a  consummation,  or  whether 
the  Senate  would  have  deferred  to  him  if  he  had,  it  is  now 
idle  to  speculate.  Another  more  plausible,  if  no  less  un 
constitutional,  means  of  accomplishing  the  same  result  was 
devised  for  them,  the  authorship  of  which  has  been  ascribed 
to  President  Grant. 

On  the  14th  of  December,  1876,  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  appointed  a  committee  of  seven  of  its  members 
to  act  in  conjunction  with  any  similar  committee  of  the 
Senate,  "to  prepare  and  report  without  delay  a  measure  for 
the  removal  of  differences  of  opinion  as  to  the  proper  mode 
of  counting  the  electoral  votes  for  President  and  Vice-Pres- 
ident  of  the  United  States,  and  of  determining  questions 
which  might  arise  as  to  the  legality  and  validity  of  the  re 
turns  of  such  votes  made  by  the  several  States,  to  the  end 
that  the  votes  should  be  counted  and  the  result  declared  by 
a  tribunal  whose  authority  none  can  question  and  whose 
decision  all  will  accept" 

Four  days  later,  and  on  the  eighteenth  of  the  same  month, 
the  Senate  created  a  special  committee  of  seven  Senators 


62  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

with  power  "  to  prepare  and  report  without  unnecessary  de 
lay  such  a  measure  either  of  a  legislative  or  other  character 
as  may  in  their  judgment  be  best  calculated  to  accomplish 
the  lawful  counting  of  the  electoral  votes  and  best  dispo 
sition  of  all  questions  connected  therewith,  and  the  true 
declaration  of  the  result,"  and  also  "  to  confer  and  act  with 
the  committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives." 

This  joint  committee  consisted  of  Senators  George  F. 
Edmunds,  of  Vermont;  Frederick  T.  Frelinghuysen,  of 
New  Jersey ;  Roscoe  Conkling,  of  New  York ;  Allen  G. 
Thurman,  of  Ohio  ;  Thomas  F.  Bayard,  of  Delaware  ;  Mat 
thew  W.  Ransom,  of  North  Carolina ;  and  Oliver  P. 
Morton,  of  Indiana;  and  Representatives  Henry  B.  Payne, 
of  Ohio ;  Eppa  Hunton,  of  Virginia;  Abram  S.  Hewitt,  of 
New  York ;  William  M.  Springer,  of  Illinois  ;  George  W. 
McCrary,  of  Iowa  ;  George  F.  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts  ;  and 
George  Willard,  of  Michigan.  On  the  18th  of  January 
this  committee  almost  unanimously — Senator  Morton  only 
dissenting  —  reported  a  bill  providing  for  the  creation  of 
a  tribunal  to  be  composed  of  five  Senators,  five  Represent 
atives,  and  five  associate  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  four  of  the  latter  being  designated  by 
their  districts  in  the  bill  itself,  the  fifth  to  be  subsequently 
chosen  by  these  four ;  to  which  tribunal  should  be  referred 
the  conflicting  certificates  and  accompanying  documents 
from  the  contested  States,  and  all  questions  relating  to 
the  powers  of  Congress  in  the  premises,  with  the  authority 
to  exercise  the  same  powers  in  ascertaining  the  legal  vote 
of  each  of  such  States.  The  bill  further  provided  that  the 
decisions  of  such  tribunal  in  every  case  should  stand, 
unless  rejected  ~by  the  concurrent  vote  of  both  Houses.  Also 
that  objections  which  might  be  made  to  any  votes  from 
States  not  presenting  double  certificates  should  be  con 
sidered,  not  by  the  commission,  but  by  the  Houses  sepa 
rately,  and  unless  sustained  by  both,  should  be  of  no  effect. 

The  bill,  after  a  sharply  contested  debate  in  both  Houses, 


WEAKNESS    OF    THE   DEMOCRATS  63 

passed  the  Senate  January  25,  and  the  House  of  Represent 
atives  January  26.  In  the  former  the  vote  was  47  yeas  to 
17  nays;  the  Republicans  voting  24  yeas  to  16  nays,  and 
the  Democrats,  23  yeas  to  1  nay ;  absent  or  not  voting,  9 
Republicans  and  1  Democrat.  In  the  House  there  were 
191  yeas  to  86  nays,  the  Democrats  voting  158  yeas  to  18 
nays,  and  the  Republicans  33  yeas  to  68  nays ;  absent  or 
not  voting,  7  Republicans  and  7  Democrats. 

How  so  large  a  number  of  the  Democrats  in  Congress 
were  induced  to  supersede  the  constitutional  machinery 
for  counting  the  electoral  votes,  for  a  device  not  only 
unknown  to  the  Constitution,  but  in  all  its  important 
bearings  inconsistent  with  it,  can  only  be  explained  as  we 
explain  most  of  the  blunders  which  are  woven  into  the  web 
of  every  human  life.  Some  yielded  through  ignorance, 
some  for  want  of  reflection,  some  to  quiet  a  controversy 
about  the  result  of  which  they  were  indifferent  or  appre 
hensive,  some  to  serve  personal  ends  at  home  that  seemed 
more  important  to  them  than  the  presidential  issue,  while 
upon  others,  many,  if  not  all,  these  considerations  may  have 
been  not  without  their  influence. 

Unfortunately  for  Mr.  Tilden,  the  Senate  swarmed  with 
Democratic  aspirants  for  the  presidency;  the  two  on 
the  committee  who  negotiated  the  surrender  having  been 
strenuous  competitors  for  that  honor  before  the  convention 
which  nominated  Mr.  Tilden.  Nor  was  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives  lacking  in  Democratic  candidates  wrho  had  not 
been  able  to  regard  with  satisfaction  the  triumph  of  a  can 
didate  who  had  not  been  in  the  least  indebted  to  Congress 
for  his  nomination,  nor  much  for  his  success  at  the  polls. 
Then  again,  there  were  perhaps  no  inconsiderable  number 
who  indulged  the  expectation  that  the  proposed  tribunal 
would  elect  their  candidate,  which  was  to  them  of  more 
concern  than  the  means  by  which  it  was  accomplished. 
The  latter  class  was  recruited  largely  from  among  those 
who  supposed  Senator  Davis,  of  Illinois,  who  then  occupied 


64  THE   LIFE   OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

a  seat  on  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court,  would  be  selected 
as  the  fifth  member  from  that  bench,  and  of  whose  charac 
ter  and  moral  authority  with  his  colleagues  enough  was 
known  to  quench  any  suspicion  of  his  lending  support 
to  the  fraudulent  and  unconstitutional  devices  upon  which 
he  would  have  had  to  sit  in  judgment.1 

Those  who  were  seduced  by  this  aleatory  device  were 
rewarded  as  they  deserved.  Just  as  the  electoral  commis 
sion  bill  became  a  law,  the  independent  Republicans  and 
the  Democrats  in  the  Illinois  Legislature  elected  Judge 
Davis  to  the  United  States  Senate.  This  afforded  that 
gentleman  an  excuse,  of  which  he  naturally  availed  himself 
with  a  prompt  alacrity,  to  decline  the  proffered  place  on 
the  commission,  and  gave  to  the  four  judges,  two  selected 
from  each  party,  the  choice  of  the  fifth,  which  resulted  in 
the  selection  of  Justice  Bradley,  a  New  Jersey  Republican, 
and  in  leaving  the  rival  candidates  entirely  at  the  mercy  of 
the  Republican  party.  By  whatever  motive  they  were  gov 
erned,  by  whatever  temptations  seduced,  it  is  now  but  too 
evident  that  the  representatives  of  the  people  in  the  lower 
House  inexcusably  abandoned  their  coign  of  vantage  and 
shirked  the  most  solemn  and  momentous  of  all  their  official 
responsibilities,  in  a  few  short  weeks  to  be  marched  through 
the  Caudine  forks  and  take  their  seats  of  humiliation  before 
the  inexorable  tribunal  of  history. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  Mr.  Tilden  was  too 
large  and  experienced  a  statesman  to  approve  of  discharging 
any  constitutional  duty  by  any  but  constitutional  methods. 
As  soon  as  the  action  of  the  Returning  Boards  furnished  a 

1  It  was  supposed  by  many  that  Morton  and  others  engineered  the 
selection  of  Davis  with  a  full  knowledge  that  he  would  not  serve.  It  is 
difficult  to  see  why  Davis  did  not  serve  on  the  commission  in  spite  of  his 
election  to  the  Senate,  unless  his  absence  from  the  commission  was  one  of 
the  conditions  of  his  election.  However  this  may  be,  his  retreat  from  the 
field  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy  effectually  disposed  of  whatever  ex 
pectations  of  preferment  he  might  have  entertained  from  the  Democratic 
party. 


TILDEN'S    VIEW    OF    THE    COMMISSION  65 

suitable  provocation  for  his  interference,  he  urged  his 
friends  in  the  leadership  of  the  House  to  expose  and  com 
bat  in  full  debate  the  threatened,  unwarrantable  usurpation 
by  the  President  of  the  Senate  of  the  right  to  count  the 
votes,  and  to  take  no  further  step  until  in  both  Houses  the 
great  but  pacific  constitutional  battle  had  been  fought  on 
that  issue.  He  was  ready  to  accept  all  responsibility  for 
the  outcome.  He  assured  them  that  if  properly  resisted 
the  conspiracy  must  break  down  ;  that  it  must  not  be  ^en 
couraged  by  the  least  symptom  of  concession,  but  fought 
inch  by  inch  on  the  floors  of  Congress,  until  the  real  char 
acter  of  the  proposed  usurpation  should  become  known 
throughout  the  country  and  the  nation's  opinion  of  it  could 
reach  Washington.  Early  in  the  session  he  prepared  two 
resolutions  which  raised  the  issue  upon  which  he  wished 
the  battle  to  be  fought,  and  which,  with  some  slight  modi 
fications  by  the  House  committee  on  "  the  privileges, 
powers,  and  duties  of  the  House  of  Representatives  in 
counting  the  electoral  votes "  that  received  his  approval, 
were  adopted  by  that  committee  and  reported  to  the 
House.1 

1  This  committee  consisted  of  Sparks  and  Burchard,  of  Illinois  ;  Tucker, 
of  Virginia;  Marsh,  of  Pennsylvania;  Seelye,  of  Massachusetts  ;  Monroe  and 
Lawrence,  of  Ohio ;  and  D.  D.  Field,  of  New  York.  The  resolutions  were 
as  follows : 

Resolved,  First,  That  the  Constitution  does  not  confer  upon  the  Pres 
ident  of  the  Senate  the  power  to  examine  and  ascertain  the  votes  to  be 
counted  as  the  electoral  votes  for  President  and  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States. 

Second,  That  the  only  power  which  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  confers  upon  the  President  of  the  Senate  in  respect  to  the  electoral 
votes  for  President  and  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  is  to  receive 
the  sealed  lists  transmitted  to  him  by  the  several  electoral  colleges,  to  keep 
the  same  safely,  and  to  open  all  the  certificates,  or  those  purporting  to  be 
such,  in  the  presence  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives. 

Third,  That  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  does  confer  upon 
the  Senate  and  the  House  of  Representatives  the  power  to  examine  and 
ascertain  the  votes  to  be  counted  as  the  electoral  votes. 

Fourth,  That  in  execution  of  their  power  in  respect  to  the  counting 
VOL.  II. -5 


66  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

Had  the  course  there  traced  been  followed,  it  is  now  ap 
parent  that  the  confirmation  of  Mr.  Tilden's  election  would 
have  been  assured  beyond  a  peradventure.  The  controlling 
voices  of  both  parties  in  the  Senate  had  over  and  over 
again,  and  within  a  few  months,  asserted  and  insisted  upon 
the  right  of  the  two  Houses  to  count  the  vote.  They  all 
knew,  and  many  had  repeatedly  assisted  in  adding  to,  the 
imposing  line  of  precedents  under  which  a  challenge  of  any 
electoral  certificate  by  either  House  had  sufficed  to  exclude 
its  vote  from  the  count.  A  challenge  of  a  single  one  of 

O  O 

the  nineteen  contested  votes  would  have  resulted  in  Tilden's 
election,  either  by  the  concurring  vote  of  the  two  Houses, 
or,  they  failing  to  concur,  in  his  election  by  the  House  of 
Representatives,  to  which  the  Constitution  has  confided  the 
choice  in  such  an  emergency,  and  where  the  Democrats 
Avere  in  the  majority,  whether  voting  by  themselves  or  by 
States.1 

Happily  we  do  not  depend  upon  rumor  nor  oral  tradition 
for  our  knowledge  of  Mr.  Tilden's  views  of  this  crisis  and 
the  proper  mode  of  dealing  with  it.  They  will  be  found 
most  carefully  and  fully  stated  as  early  as  the  1st  of  Jan 
uary,  1877,  in  the  inaugural  message  of  Governor  Robin 
son,  of  which  the  portion  which  appears  under  the  rubric 
of  national  affairs  was  written  by  Mr.  Tilden.  The 
forecast  and  wisdom  of  this  statement,  and  its  direct 

of  the  electoral  votes,  the  House  of  Representatives  is  at  least  equal  with 
the  Senate. 

Fifth,  That  in  the  counting  of  the  electoral  votes,  no  vote  can  be  counted 
against  the  judgment  and  determination  of  the  House  of  Representatives. 

Sixth,  That  the  committee  have  leave  to  sit  again  and  report  hereafter 
further  matter  for  the  consideration  of  the  House. 

1  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  Art.  11,  Sect.  Ill,  provides: 
"  The  person  having  the  greatest  number  of  votes  shall  be  the  President, 
if  such  number  be  the  majority  of  the  whole  number  of  electors  appointed; 
and  if  there  be  more  than  one  who  have  such  majority,  and  have  an  equal 
number  of  votes,  then  the  House  of  Representatives  shall  immediately 
choose,  by  ballot,  one  of  them  for  President ;  and  if  no  person  have  a 
majority,  then  from  the  highest  on  the  list  the  said  House  shall  in  like 
manner  choose  the  President. 


TILDEN    ON    COUNTING    ELECTORAL    VOTES       67 

bearing  upon  what  had  occurred  and  upon  what  was  to 
occur,  time  has  only  made  more  conspicuous.  In  the 
course  of  this  statement  he  says : 

TILDEN'S  VIEWS  OF  THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  MODE  or  COUNT 
ING   ELECTORAL   VOTES. 


"  The  recent  presidential  election  threatens  to  prove  an 
epoch  of  solemn  portent  in  our  history.  For  the  first  time 
in  the  twenty-two  elections  which  have  been  held  for 
President  and  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  the 
result  remains  a  subject  of  controversy  after  the  canvass  of 
the  votes  within  the  States  has  been  made  and  announced. 
The  two  Houses  of  Congress  have  been  heretofore  repeat 
edly  required  to  pass  upon  the  authenticity  and  validity  of 
electoral  votes,  but  in  no  former  instance  has  the  election 
turned  upon  the  questionable  votes.  In  every  former  case 
the  result  has  been  determined  by  electoral  votes  which 
were  not  in  controversy.  In  the  present  instance  one 
candidate  for  President  and  one  candidate  for  Vice-Pres 
ident  have  received  184  undisputed  electoral  votes,  as  well 
as  a  popular  majority  exceeding  a  quarter  of  a  million. 
Another  candidate  for  President  and  another  candidate  for 
Vice-President  have  received  165  undisputed  electoral 
votes.  All  the  votes  of  three  States, — four  in  Florida, 
eight  in  Louisiana,  and  seven  in  South  Carolina,  —  making 
nineteen  in  all,  are  still  in  dispute ;  also  one  of  the  three 
votes  in  Oregon.  In  all  these  cases  two  sets  of  returns 
have  been  f  transmitted  to  the  seat  of  government,  directed 
to  the  President  of  the  Senate,'  to  await  the  action  of  the 
two  Houses  of  Congress,  whose  duty  it  is  to  verify,  ascer 
tain,  and  count  the  electoral  votes. 

"  In  a  situation  involving  such  momentous  results  as  the 
chief  magistracy  of  this  republic,  all  the  baser  as  well  as 
the  better  forces  of  society  are  naturally  embattled  to 
secure  the  prize.  It  is  in  such  crises  of  history  that  the 
controlling  force  of  cardinal  principles  is  liable  to  be 
weakened,  dangerous  concessions  to  be  made,  perilous 
precedents  established,  sacred  traditions  violated,  and  the 
most  important  bulwarks  of  constitutional  freedom  rendered 
less  secure. 


68  THE   LIFE   OF  SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

"  In  Louisiana  we  have  seen  a  State  government  imposed 
on  the  people  by  the  military  force  of  the  federal  executive 
under  color  of  a  pretended  order  of  a  federal  judge,  which 
order  in  itself  was  void,  and  which  led  to  the  resignation 
of  the  judge  who  made  it,  to  escape  impeachment.  We 
have  seen  the  government  thus  imposed  by  military  force 
condemned  as  illegal  and  a  mere  usurpation,  by  both  Houses 
of  Congress,  and  the  electoral  votes  given  under  its 
auspices  rejected  in  the  counting  of  the  presidential  votes 
in  1873  by  the  concurrent  judgment  of  the  same  tribunal. 
We  have  seen  the  government  so  imposed  create  '  a  Return 
ing  Board '  practically  vested  with  absolute  power  to 
revise  and,  if  they  please,  to  reverse  the  results  of  the 
election  by  the  people  of  the  State,  and  thus  organize  a 
political  mechanism  under  which  an  oligarchy  in  temporary 
possession  of  the  legislative  power  of  a  State  might  perpet 
uate  their  ascendency  indefinitely. 

"I  pause  here  in  this  statement  to  interpose,  in  behalf  of 
the  people  of  this  great  Commonwealth,  a  solemn  denial  of 
the  power  of  any  State  government  or  of  the  federal  gov 
ernment  to  vest  such  powers  as  are  claimed  by  the  Louisi 
ana  Returning  Board  in  any  Canvassing  Board  whatever. 

"  In  the  first  place,  such  powers  in  respect  to  the  choice 
of  presidential  electors  are  not  warranted  by,  but  are 
repugnant  to,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  The 
provision  of  section  1  of  article  2  of  that  instrument,  'that 
each  State  shall  appoint,  in  such  manner  as  the  Legislature 
thereof  may  direct,  its  presidential  electors,'  does  not 
confer  on  the  Legislature  of  a  State  an  unlimited  power 
over  the  subject.  No  one  will  pretend  that  a  temporary 
majority  in  the  Legislature  of  a  State  could  grant  to  an 
individual,  or,  to  a  set  of  individuals,  the  power  to  appoint 
presidential  electors ;  that  it  could  make  this  grant  for  a 
period  of  years,  or  indefinitely,  or  to  his  or  their  heirs  or 
assigns. 

"  What  it  cannot  do  in  form  it  cannot  do  in  substance  ; 
what  it  cannot  do  directly  it  cannot  do  indirectly.  The  choice 
which  a  Legislature  is  authorized  to  make  for  a  State, 
in  the  mode  of  appointing  presidential  electors,  is  limited 
to  a  mere  selection  between  certain  known  forms  of  action, 
recognized  in  the  practice  of  popular  government,  and 
consistent  with  the  nature  of  popular  government.  It 
is  a  choice  of  modes,  but  must  not  change  or  destroy  the 


TILDEN    ON    COUNTING    ELECTORAL    VOTES       69 

essential  character  of  the  thing  itself.  It  is  subject  to  the 
condition  that  '  the  Slate  shall  appoint '  the  presidential 
electors.  The  State,  that  is,  the  political  community  known 
in  our  jurisprudence  and  constitutional  law  by  that  name, 
must  '  appoint,'  and  in  doing  so  it  must  act  by  and 
through  its  known  and  rightful  organs.  At  the  time  this 
provision  of  the  federal  Constitution  was  adopted,  it  was 
contemplated  that  the  Legislature  of  a  State  possessing  all 
the  governmental  powers  not  withdrawn  by  the  provisions 
of  the  State  Constitution,  or  transferred  to  the  government 
of  the  Union,  might  itself  choose  the  electors.  And, 
indeed,  that  was  the  mode  at  first  generally  practised  by 
the  States.  The  State  Legislature  at  that  time  was  regarded 
as  the  most  natural  and  the  legitimate  organ  of  the  State. 
The  power  to  choose  presidential  electors  might  properly 
be  conferred  upon  the  people  of  the  State  by  a  general 
ticket,  the  voters  throughout  the  State  choosing  all  the 
electors ;  or  they  might  be  chosen  by  the  people  of  the 
State  voting  in  districts,  each  district  choosing  one  elector, 
These  were  methods  consonant  with  the  principles  of  our 
system  of  government,  and  by  either  of  which  it  could  be 
properly  said  that  the  State  did,  in  fact,  'appoint*  the 
electors. 

"  It  is  historically  certain  that  these  different  modes  were 
in  the  contemplation  of  the  convention  which  formed  the 
Constitution.  Experiencing  some  difficulty,  however,  in 
imposing  this  duty  upon  all  the  States  by  any  one  uniform 
system,  it  devolved  upon  the  Legislatures  of  each  State  the 
authority  to  choose  from  among  these  methods,  one  for  the 
exercise  of  that  power  which  it  granted  in  declaring  that 
'  each  State  shall  appoint.' 

"  While  the  Legislature  of  a  State  may  provide  that  presi 
dential  electors  shall  be  appointed  by  an  election  of  the 
people,  it  cannot  provide  that  that  election  shall  not  be  a 
reality ;  that  it  shall  be  a  sham,  and  that  the  actual  power 
of  determining  the  choice  shall  be  invested  in  a  packed 
committee,  whether  it  be  called  a  'Returning  Board,'  or 
by  any  other  name. 

"  Neither  can  it  invest  a  Board  of  Canvassers  with  indefinite 
or  with  arbitrary  powers,  nor  with  any  authority  which,  by 
the  principles  and  practice  of  our  jurisprudence  and  the 
policy  of  our  elective  system,  is  not  fairly  incident  to  the 
function  of  ascertaining  the  vote  of  the  people.  This  seems 


70  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

to  me  to  be  the  obvious,  the  wise  interpretation  of  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States  and  of  its  laws.  Any  other 
doctrine  will  open  the  way  to  abuses,  frauds,  and  usurpa 
tions,  which  must  end  in  destroying  popular  elections. 
The  moment  we  depart  from  a  strict  construction  of  grants 
of  power  in  derogation  of  the  integrity  and  efficiency  of  the 
elective  system,  we  shall  be  able  to  find  no  rule  that  will 
protect  the  rights  of  the  people.  We  shall  tempt  transient 
majorities  to  seek  to  prolong  their  power  by  tampering 
with  the  machinery  of  elections,  and  the  easiest,  most  con 
venient,  and  most  effectual  method  for  such  a  purpose  is  by 
the  contrivance  of  Returning  Boards,  which  shall  be  packed 
and  equipped  with  powers  hitherto  unknown  to  our  laws 
and  practically  subversive  of  the  will  of  the  people. 

"  In  the  particular  case  of  Louisiana,  other  equally  grave 
illegalities  are  believed  to  exist.  The  powers  vested  in 
the  Returning  Board  are  inconsistent  with  the  provision  in 
the  Constitution  of  that  State,  which  guarantees  the  elective 
franchise  to  voters,  and  also  with  the  provision  which  con 
fers  the  judicial  power  upon  the  courts.  It  is  probable 
that  the  powers  of  this  board,  by  the  law  of  Louisiana,  do 
not  apply  to  presidential  electors ;  that  the  board  itself  was 
not  constituted  in  accordance  with  the  law  under  which  it 
was  created ;  and  finally,  that  a  condition,  without  which 
the  Returning  Board  could  not  get  jurisdiction  in  the  cases 
where  it  assumed  to  reject  votes  of  whole  districts,  was  not 
complied  with.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the 
authority  exercised  by  that  Returning  Board  is  void,  as  re 
pugnant  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  also 
to  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  Louisiana. 

"In  this  state  of  the  law,  that  Returning  Board,  according 
to  public  statements  of  conceded  facts,  by  manipulations  of 
the  returns,  have  changed  a  majority  for  one  set  of  presi 
dential  electors  of  about  9,000  to  a  majority  for  another  set 
of  about  4,000,  which  would  be  equivalent  to  a  change  of 
over  80,000  votes  in  the  State  of  New  York. 

"  In  Florida  we  have  seen  a  Board  of  State  Canvassers,  sol 
emnly  adjudged  by  the  highest  court  in  the  State  to  possess 
none  but  ministerial  powers,  assume  the  authority  to  re 
verse  the  choice  of  electors  as  shown  on  the  face  of  the 
returns  made  by  the  officers  who  conducted  the  elec 
tions  and  received  the  votes ;  and  to  do  this  in  open  dis 
obedience  and  cejritempt  of  the  judicial  tribunal  having 


TILDEN    ON    COUNTING    ELECTORAL    VOTES       71 

jurisdiction  in  such  matters,  and  vested  with  the  right  of 
final  judgment. 

"  In  South  Carolina  we  have  seen  the  Board  of  State  Can 
vassers  fabricating  a  canvass  in  like  disobedience  and  con 
tempt  of  the  Supreme  Court  having  jurisdiction  and  the 
right  of  final  judgment ;  we  have  seen  federal  soldiery  take 
possession  of  the  capitol  of  the  State,  and  a  corporal  at  the 
door  determining  who  were  the  elect  of  the  people,  and 
who  were  to  be  permitted  to  represent  them  as  legisla 
tors.  Notwithstanding  some  of  these  acts  have  been 
disavowed  by  the  federal  executive,  no  mark  of  dis 
approbation  has  been  put  upon  the  authors  of  the  out 
rages  ;  the  officer  in  command  goes  still  unrebuked,  and 
when  the  Returning  Board  were  committed  to  prison  for 
contempt,  by  the  highest  court  in  the  State,  a  judge  of  the 
United  States  District  Court  is  sent  down  to  South  Caro 
lina,  and,  without  jurisdiction  in  the  case,  grants  a  writ  of 
habeas  corpus,  and  discharges  the  offenders.  These  pro 
ceedings  are  the  more  extraordinary  and  alarming  when  we 
consider  that  such  violations  of  law  and  of  right  have  been 
resorted  to  to  overturn  elections,  all  the  officers  conducting 
which  were  of  the  same  political  party  with  the  candidates 
in  whose  favor  these  acts  have  been  committed ;  that  the 
elections  were  held  under  the  surveillance  of  troops  of  the 
United  States,  without  any  constitutional  warrant  for  their 
presence,  and  that  the  judicial  decisions  thus  set  at  naught 
cannot  be  suspected  of  any  partisan  bias,  for  they  were 
rendered  both  in  Florida  and  South  Carolina  by  judges,  all 
of  whom  were  of  the  same  political  party  with  the  Return 
ing  Board. 

"These  interferences  of  the  military  power  have  been 
committed  in  flagrant  violation  of  the  Constitution  and 
laws.  They  were  not  provoked  by  domestic  violence ; 
they  were  not  invited  in  the  only  way  that  wrould  have 
made  them  constitutional,  by  the  Legislature  of  the  State ; 
and  they  were  continued  after  the  election  was  over  and 
during  all  the  subsequent  proceedings  of  the  Canvassing 
Board.  Their  tendency  was  to  overawe  the  voters  under 
the  pretence  of  keeping  the  peace,  though  by  measures  in 
themselves  unlawful,  and  to  deliver  dishonest  officials  from 
the  natural  sense  of  responsibility  and  the  natural  timidity 
in  regard  to  the  consequences  of  their  acts,  which  are  prov 
idential  limitations  to  men's  conceptions  of  the  crimes  upon 
which  they  may  venture. 


72  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"  While  these  things  were  going  on  in  the  South  a  member 
of  the  cabinet  at  Washington  was  acting  as  chairman  of  a 
partisan  national  committee,  and  with  the  cooperation  of 
some  of  his  colleagues  in  the  cabinet,  counselling  and  sys 
tematically  stimulating  these  desperate  measures. 

"  The  result  which  these  proceedings  seem  designed  to 
accomplish  cannot  be  secured  without  one  further  step  in 
the  processes  of  usurpation.  The  fabrication  of  electoral 
votes  amounts  to  nothing  unless  they  can  be  counted  by  the 
tribunal  whose  constitutional  duty  it  is  to  verify  and  au 
thenticate  them.  That  inexorable  necessity  has  given  birth 
to  a  new  device  for  counting  the  votes,  not  only  unknown 
to  the  Constitution,  but  in  conflict  with  the  construction 
hitherto  always  accepted,  and  with  the  invariable  practice 
and  precedents.  That  device  is  for  the  President  of  the 
Senate  to  usurp  the  power  of  determining  what  votes  shall 
be  counted,  and  what  shall  not  be  counted,  and  to  exercise 
that  power  in  disregard  of  the  orders  of  the  two  Houses. 
It  would  not  be  credible  that  so  monstrous  a  claim  as  this 
could  be  seriously  asserted  if  leading  Senators  had  not  pub 
licly  avowed  it. 

"  Nothing  could  be  more  abhorrent  to  the  spirit  of  our 
system  of  government  than  such  a  one-man  power.  The 
President  of  the  Senate  is  elected  by  the  Senators,  and 
they  in  turn  are  elected  by  the  State  legislators.  He  is, 
therefore,  three  removes  from  the  people.  If  such  a  power 
were  to  have  been  vested  in  a  single  man,  a  depository 
would  have  been  chosen  not  so  far  removed  from  popular 
accountability.  But  the  people  of  this  country  will  never 
vest  such  a  power  in  any  one  man,  however  selected.  They 
will  never  consent  to  a  new  construction  of  the  Constitution 
and  laws  that  bears  such  fruit.  They  will  stand  firmly  in 
the  ancient  ways,  and  insist  that  the  electoral  votes  in  this 
emergency  shall  be  counted  as  they  have  always  been 
counted,  by  the  two  Houses  of  Congress,  and  by  nobody 
else.  They  will  look  with  just  suspicion  upon  the  purposes 
of  any  who  would  propose  to  depart  from  the  precedents 
which  have  been  hallowed  by  time,  and  the  uniform  prac 
tice  of  the  Republic  from  its  foundation. 

"  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  confers  upon  the 
President  of  the  Senate  no  power  whatever  in  respect  to 
the  counting  of  the  electoral  votes,  except  'in  presence  of 
the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,'  to  '  open '  all 


TILDEN   ON    COUNTING    ELECTORAL    VOTES       73 

the  certificates  which  may  be  transmitted  by  the  colleges 
to  the  seat  of  government,  directed  to  him. 

"  The  Constitution  confers  upon  the  President  of  the  Sen 
ate  no  power  to  determine  the  authenticity  and  validity  of 
an  electoral  vote,  or  to  interfere  in  any  wise  with  any  such 
question. 

"  No  President  of  the  Senate  has  ever  claimed  or  exer 
cised  such  a  power  at  any  of  the  twenty-one  presidential 
elections  that  have  occurred  under  our  Constitution. 

"  The  mode  of  procedure  for  the  counting  of  electoral 
votes  has  been  invariably  regulated  by  the  two  Houses 
of  Congress,  by  concurrent  resolution  or  standing  rules 
adopted  before  the  count.  Those  resolutions  or  rules  have 
prescribed  every  step  in  the  whole  process ;  every  function 
of  the  tellers  and  of  the  President  of  the  Senate,  whenever 
any  additional  service,  even  of  the  most  formal  sort,  has 
been  required  of  him. 

"  In  every  instance  the  counting  has  been  conducted  in 
conformity  with  the  procedure  thus  prescribed  by  the  two 
Houses ;  by  servants  designated  by  the  two  Houses  under 
instructions  and  in  the  presence  of  the  two  Houses,  and 
with  the  entire  concurrence  and  the  implicit  obedience  of 
every  President  of  the  Senate  who  has  participated  in  these 
ceremonies. 

"  So  often  as  any  question  has  arisen  as  to  the  authentic 
ity  or  validity  of  an  electoral  vote,  the  two  Houses  have 
assumed  and  exercised  the  exclusive  power  to  act  upon  and 
determine  that  question.  They  have,  in  contemplation  of 
law,  themselves  made  every  count ;  they  have  from  the 
first  assumed  exclusive  jurisdiction  to  regulate  and  govern 
the  whole  transaction  by  temporary  concurrent  orders  ad 
opted  for  the  occasion,  by  standing  joint  rules,  and  by  the 
enactment  of  laws.  Such  has  been  the  uniform  and  unin 
terrupted  course  of  precedents,  the  invariable  practice  of 
the  government,  and  the  official  exposition  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  which  has  been  deliberately  adopted,  invariably  acted 
upon,  and  unive-rsally  accepted. 

"No  fitter  repository  of  all  such  powers  as  are  vested  in 
or  must  of  necessity  be  exercised  by  the  government  can  be 
found  than  the  two  Houses  of  Congress.  They  are  not  only 
the  general  agents  of  the  people  under  our  representative 
system,  but  in  case  of  the  failure  of  a  choice  of  Presi 
dent  and  Vice- President  by  the  electoral  colleges,  they  are 


74  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

expressly  charged  by  the  Constitution  with  the  duty  of  making 
the  election. 

"  The  people  of  the  United  States  will  never  consent  to 
have  their  Representatives  in  Congress  stripped  of  these 
powers,  or  tolerate  this  usurpation  by  a  deputy  of  the  Sen 
ate,  or  by  any  single  person,  and  still  less  by  an  officer 
who  is  frequently  interested  as  a  candidate  in  the  result  of 
the  count. 

"  In  this  sentiment  and  purpose  the  State  of  New  York 
cordially  concurs.  Foremost  among  all  our  American 
commonwealths  in  population,  in  the  variety  and  extent  of 
her  industries  and  interests,  she  has  in  every  vicissitude  of 
public  aifairs  put  forth  all  her  strength,  moral  and  physical, 
to  maintain  the  existence  and  the  just  authorities  of  the 
Union,  and  she  can  never  consent  that  the  time-consecrated 
methods  of  constitutional  government  shall  be  supplanted 
or  overthrown  by  revolutionary  expedients." 

Why  Mr.  Tilden's  advice,  so  simple,  so  wise,  so  logical, 
so  sure  sooner  or  later  to  enlist  the  sympathies  and  respect 
of  every  law-abiding  citizen  in  the  land,  was  not  followed, 
is  a  question  which  I  do  not  feel  called  to  enter  upon  here. 
Besides,  it  involves  the  discussion  of  motives  which  can 
never  be  subjected  to  any  undebatable  test ;  and  if  they 
could  be,  the  profit  of  such  a  discussion  now  is  more  than 
questionable.  I  shall  discharge  my  duty  as  his  biographer 
in  reporting  what  Mr.  Tilden  did  to  save  his  party,  without 
dwelling  more  than  is  necessary  for  that  purpose  upon  what 
others  did  to  wreck  it.1 

The  electoral  commission  scheme  was  not  disclosed  to 
Mr.  Tilden  until  it  was  too  late  for  any  opposition  on  his 
part  to  be  effective  in  prosecuting  his  method,  which  was 
the  only  constitutional  method  of  settling  the  questions  in 
dispute.  How  it  was  first  brought  to  his  attention  was 

1  The  late  James  G.  Elaine,  serving  as  one  of  the  visitors  at  the  West 
Point  Military  Academy,  a  year  or  two  after  the  inauguration  of  Hayes, 
expressed  himself  to  me  as  greatly  surprised  when  the  Democrats  in  Con 
gress  assented  to  the  plan  of  an  electoral  commission.  He  added  that  if 
the  Democrats  had  been  firm  the  Republicans  had  no  alternative  but  to 
yield,  and  such  was  the  result  which  he  had  anticipated. 


TILDEN'S  APPROVAL,  NOT  HIS  OPINIONS,  WANTED    75 

thus  set  down  in  a  carefully  considered  communication 
addressed  by  Mr.  Manton  Marble  to  the  "New  York  Sun," 
on  the  5th  of  August,  1878.  The  tenor  of  this  communica 
tion,  as  well  as  the  circumstances  under  which  it  appeared, 
leave  little  doubt  that  before  it  was  given  to  the  public  it 
passed  under  Mr.  Tilden's  eyes. 

"On  the  evening  of  Saturday,  January  13,  the  under 
signed,  calling  upon  Mr.  Tilden,  found  him  in  receipt  of 
the  McCrary  House  bill  with  proposed  amendments,  and  a 
letter  from  Mr.  Hewitt  advertising  the  Governor  that  his 
counsel  thereon  would  be  asked  the  next  day.  Mr.  Tilden 
invited  the  undersigned  to  call  on  the  morrow,  when  Mr. 
Hewitt  should  be  there,  to  consider  this  bill  —  the  sup 
posed  axis  on  which  the  deliberations  of  the  House  con 
ference  committee  were  revolving. 

rf  The  undersigned  thus  came  to  be  present  January  14, 
the  day  and  date  when  Mr.  Tilden  received  from  Mr. 
Hewitt's  lips  his  first  information  that  other  measures  had 
been  abandoned ;  that  the  Senate  conference  committee 
had  just  disclosed  to  the  House  conference  committee  an 
electoral  commission  bill  it  had  been  privately  preparing ; 
that  the  House  committee  wrere  pressed  to  accept  and 
adopt  the  same,  and  that  the  subject  he  wished  to  confer 
upon  was  that. 

"  Mr.  Hewitt  explained  as  the  Senate  committee's  reason 
for  secrecy,  that  without  it  they  could  not  carry  the  bill. 
It  had  been  adopted  by  arrangement  between  the  three 
Democratic  and  the  four  Republican  members,  and  was  so 
strictly  observed  that  when  Senator  Kernan  made  inquiry 
of  one  of  the  former,  he  was  told  that  nothing  could  be 
disclosed  to  him  without  violating  an  honorable  under 
standing.  So  well  was  the  secret  kept,  that  Senator 
Barnum,  now  chairman  of  the  national  committee,  passing 
through  New  York  on  Friday,  the  12th,  had  expressed  his 
conviction  that  a  majority  of  the  Senate,  as  Mr.  Tilden's 
plan  anticipated,  would  concur  in  denying  the  right  of 
Ferry  to  make  the  count. 

"  Before  he  read  the  new  bill,  Mr.  Tilden  was  told  by  Mr. 
Hewitt  that  the  Democratic  members  of  the  Senate  com 
mittee  were  already  absolutely  committed  to  it,  and  would 
concur  with  their  Eepublican  associates  in  reporting  it  to 


76  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

the  Senate,  whether  the  House  committee  should  concur  or 
not,  and  whether  Mr.  Tilden  approved  it  or  not. 

r'Is  it  not  rather  late,  then,'  said  Mr.  Tilden,  'to  con 
sult  me?' 

'  They  do  not  consult  you,'  replied  Mr.  Hewitt.  f  They 
are  public  men,  and  have  their  own  duties  and  responsibili 
ties.  I  consult  you.' " 

In  other  words,  as  Mr.  Tilden  expressed  himself  to  me 
at  the  time,  the  parents  of  this  measure  "have  sent  Mr. 
Hewitt,  not  to  consult  me  about  it,  but  to  get  my  approval 
of  it."  This  Mr.  Tilden  declined  to  give,  and  urged  delay. 
When  its  friends  pretended  that  time  pressed,  he  told  them, 
•'  There  is  time  enough.  It  is  a  month  before  the  count. 
It  had  best  be  used,  all  of  it,  in  making  the  people  and 
their  agents  fully  acquainted  with  their  rights  and  duties." 

To  the  statement  that  the  Senate  committee  would  not 
delay  for  this  to  present  their  bill,  with  the  unanimous  ap 
proval  of  its  three  Democratic  members,  to  the  Eepublican 
Senate,  Mr.  Tilden  replied : 

"  It  is  a  panic  of  pacificators.  They  will  act  in  haste  and 
repent  at  leisure." 

To  representations  of  the  danger  of  a  collision  of  force 
with  the  executive,  Mr.  Tilden  replied  : 

"  Nevertheless,  this  action  is  too  precipitate.  The  fears  of 
collision  are  exaggerated.  And  why  surrender  now?  You 
can  always  surrender.  That  is  all  you  have  to  do  after 
being  beaten.  Why  surrender  before  the  battle  for  fear  of 
having  to  surrender  after  the  battle  is  over?  "  l 

1  This  recalls  the  advice  which  Dr.  Franklin  gave  to  his  son  when  Colo 
nial  Governor  of  New  Jersey  : 

u  Perhaps  they  may  expect  that  your  resentment  of  their  treatment  of  me 
may  induce  you  to  resign  and  save  them  the  shame  of  depriving  you,  when 
they  ought  to  promote  you.  But  this  I  would  not  advise  you  to  do.  Let 
them  take  your  place  if  they  want  it, — though  in  truth  it  is  scarce  worth 
your  keeping,  —  since  it  has  not  afforded  you  sufficient  to  prevent  your  run 
ning  every  year  behindhand  with  me.  One  may  make  something  of  an 
injury,  nothing  of  a  resignation"  —  Bigelow's  u  Life  of  Franklin,"  under 
date  of  Feb.  28,  1874. 


DEFEAT    WITHOUT   A    BATTLE  77 

Unfortunately,  the  course  of  procedure  which  Mr.  Tilden 
had  traced  out  and  urged  upon  the  party  was  no  longer 
possible.  Their  line  of  battle  had  been  broken.  The  two 
controlling  Democratic  Senators  on  the  committee,  by  their 
negotiations  had  practically  surrendered  the  Democratic 
fortress.  The  plain,  square  issue  made  by  Mr.  Tilden  could 
not  be  revived  after  a  willingness  to  negotiate  and  make 
concessions  had  once  been  manifested. 

Even  had  it  been  still  possible  to  defeat  the  proposed 
scheme  of  arbitration,  that  would  not  have  restored  the  for 
tress  ;  it  would  not  have  made  it  any  longer  practicable  to 
resume  Mr.  Tilclen's  plan  of  battle.  To  that,  as  Mr.  Mar 
ble  justly  remarks, 


"  The  conditions  of  success  were  an  indomitable  and 
united  Democracy,  and  an  unbroken  favoring  public  opin 
ion.  But  the  mere  proposal  of  the  electoral  arbitrament, 
backed  by  great  Democratic  leaders,  caused  three  illusions 
to  prevail :  the  illusion  that  such  an  arbitrament  was  the 
only  alternative  to  civil  war ;  the  illusion  that  such  a  tri 
bunal  must  establish  truth  in  its  decision  and  the  people  in 
their  rights ;  the  illusion  of  the  business  classes,  oppressed 
by  long-suifering  under  ruinous  tariffs  and  fluctuating  cur 
rencies,  that  it  was  the  harbinger  of  new  prosperity.  So 
that  the  rank  and  file  would  have  been  resuming  a  contest 
abandoned  by  their  familiar  leaders  as  hopeless,  and  at 
tempting  recurrence  to  the  earlier  issue  amidst  a  public 
opinion  now  reversed  and  hostile." 


Instead,  therefore,  of  wasting  his  energies  in  useless 
criticism  of  what  had  been  done,  Mr.  Tilden  directed  his 
attention  to  such  modifications  in  the  structure  of  this 
projected  court  of  arbitration  as  he  thought  essential. 

If  an  arbitration  is  to  be  adopted,  he  insisted  that  the 
members  of  the  tribunal  ought  to  be  fixed  in  the  bill  it 
self,  not  left  to  chance  or  intrigue. 

That  the  duty  of  the  arbitrators  to  investigate  and  decide 


78  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDE  N 

the  case  on  its  merits  should  be  made  mandatory,  not  left 
to  their  discretion. 

"With  both  these  vital  points  left  at  loose  ends,"  he  said, 
"  you  cannot  succeed.  You  cannot  afford  to  concede,  and 
you  can  exact,  first,  the  selection  of  good  men  to  com 
pose  the  tribunal,  which  is  the  controlling  point ;  and, 
second,  define  the  nature  of  the  function  to  be  performed 
by  the  tribunal,  which  is  next  in  importance. 

"  Fix  these  two  points,  —  good  men  ;  explicit  powers,  - 
and  you  might  possibly  get  through.     Leave  them  doubtful, 
and  it  is  happy-go-lucky,  — the  shake  of  a  dice-box." 

When  pressed  by  suggestions  of  the  improbability  of  the 
House  insisting  upon  its  independent  constitutional  rights 
without  the  support  of  the  Democratic  Senators  w^ho  were 
committed  to  a  compromise,  he  said : 

"  If  you  go  into  a  conference  with  your  adversary,  and 
can't  break  off,  because  you  feel  you  must  agree  to  some 
thing,  you  cannot  negotiate  at  all.  Unless  you  are  able  to 
break  off,  you  are  not  fit  to  negotiate.  You  will  be  beaten 
upon  every  detail." 

On  the  15th  of  January  Mr.  Hewitt  telegraphed  from 
Washington  to  his  brother-in-law,  Edward  Cooper,  in  New 
York: 

"The  Senate  committee  will  probably  reject  five  and 
report  six  judge  plan  immediately.  Our  Senators  feel 
committed  to  concur.  House  committee  will  not  concur, 
and  for  present  will  probably  not  report." 

To  this  suggestion  Mr.  Tilden  said,  "I  may  lose  the 
presidency,  but  I  will  not  raffle  for  it."  To  Mr.  Hewitt  he 
telegraphed  through  Mr.  Cooper  : 

"  Procrastinate  to  give  few  days  for  information  and  con 
sultation.  The  six-judge  proposition  inadmissible." 

The  next  day  Mr.  Hewitt  telegraphed  again  to  Mr. 
Cooper : 


DEMOCRATS    SURRENDER    WITHOUT   A    FIGHT       79 

"WASHINGTON,  Jan.  16,  1877. 

"After  protracted  negotiations  Senate  [committee]  re 
ceded  from  six-judge  [scheme],  declined  five-judge,  and 
offered  four  senior  associate  justices,  who  are  to  choose 
the  fifth  judge,  excluding  chief  justice.  Our  Senate 
friends  earnestly  favor  acceptance,  because  they  do  not 
believe  it  possible  to  pass  over.  The  Democrats  on  House 
committee  believe  this  is  the  last  chance  of  agreement. 
We  cannot  postpone  beyond  11  to-morrow,  and  if  we 
decline,  Senate  committee  will  report  their  original  plan, 
to  which  our  friends  are  committed.  Telegraph  your 
advice." 

Mr.  Tilden  sent  the  followin    answer  : 


YORK,  January  16. 
"Be  firm  and  cool.  Four-judge  plan  will  not  do.  Per 
haps  worse  than  six.  Complaints  likely  to  arise  of  haste 
and  want  of  consultation  with  members,  and  embarrass 
ment  in  exercise  of  their  judgment  after  plan  is  disclosed, 
by  premature  committal  of  their  representatives.  There 
should  be  more  opportunity  for  deliberation  and  consultation. 
Secrecy  dangerous.  Probably  mistake  in  itself,  and  if  it 
results  in  disaster  would  involve  great  blame  and  infinite 
mischief." 

The  ni^ht  of  the  day  that  the  foregoing  telegram,  was 

o  «/  o         o  c? 

sent,  the  foregoing  telegrams  were  canvassed  by  Mr.  Tilden 
in  the  presence  of  several  of  his  friends,  at  the  conclusion 
of  which  he  dictated  the  following  telegram  : 

"NEW  YORK,  January  16. 

"  No  need  of  hot  haste,  but  much  danger  in  it.  Some 
days'  interval  should  be  taken.  The  risk  of  publicity  [is] 
harmless. 

"No  information  here,  nor  any  opportunity  to  get  infor 
mation  which  could  justify  abstinence  from  condemning 
such  an  abandonment  of  the  Constitution  and  practice  of 
the  government,  and  of  the  rights  of  the  two  Houses  and 
of  the  people. 

"  Nothing  but  great  and  certain  public  danger,  not  to  be 
escaped  in  any  other  way,  could  excuse  such  a  measure. 


80  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

We  are  overpressed  by  exaggerated  fears,  and  forget  that 
the  other  side  will  have  greater  troubles  than  we,  unless 
relieved  by  some  agreement. 

"  They  have  no  way  out  but  by  usurpation ;  [they]  are 
bullying  us  with  what  they  dare  not  do,  or  will  break 
down  in  attempting. 

"  So  long  as  we  stand  on  the  Constitution  and  settled 
practice,  we  know  where  we  are.  Consequence  of  new 
expedient  not  enough  considered. 

"  Only  way  of  getting  accessions  in  the  Senate  is  by 
House  standing  firm.  And  judicious  friends  believe  in 
that  case  we  will  go  safely  through.  Opportunity  to  con 
sult  such  friends  should  be  given,  before  even  tacit  ac 
quiescence  [by  House  committee] ,  if  that  is  contemplated. 
Though  details  may  be  properly  discussed,  final  committal 
by  House  committee  should  be  firmly  withheld." 

Before  this  telegram  had  reached,  or  at  least  been  seen 
by,  Mr.  Hewitt,  the  surrender  had  been  consummated. 

In  no  single  particular  from  the  beginning  to  the  consum 
mation  of  the  transaction  had  the  advice  of  Mr.  Tilden  been 
acted  upon.  He  advised  the  House  of  Representatives,  with 
a  majority  in  sympathy  with  the  majority  of  the  people,  to 
stand  upon  its  constitutional  rights,  and  leave  to  the  Senate, 
if  it  dared,  the  responsibility  of  violating  those  rights. 

Instead  of  which  the  House  of  Kepresentatives  consented 
to  be  made  of  no  account,  and  exchanged  positive  and  in 
disputable  powers,  under  the  absolute  control  of  friends, 
for  the  privilege  of  attempting  the  persuasion  of  enemies. 

Instead  of  exercising  the  rights  and  discharging  the 
duties  imposed  upon  it  in  the  most  unequivocal  terms,  it 
accepted  a  scheme  for  counting  the  votes  which  originated 
with  a  body  having  no  corresponding  contingent  authority, 
and  in  political  sympathy  with  the  majority  of  a  commis 
sion  recruited  from  and  controlled  by  a  bench  every  mem 
ber  of  which  had  been  appointed  by  Republican  Presidents. 

Mr.  Tilden  had  urged  publicity  and  discussion,  insisting 
that  secrecy  in  respect  to  any  plan  involving  the  rights  and 
interests  of  a  whole  people  w^as  unwise,  dangerous,  and 


"YOU    CAN   SURRENDER    AT   ANY    TIME"         81 

essentially  undemocratic.  The  scheme  adopted  was  con 
ceived  and  begotten  in  a  corner,  and  never  exposed  to  the 
light  of  day  until  it  had  wrought  irremediable  mischief; 
still  less  was  it  submitted  to  such  a  discussion  as  befitted  a 
measure  involving  the  chief  magistracy  of  fifty  millions  of 
people. 

Mr.  Tilden  advised  against  the  betrayal  of  any  symp 
toms  of  a  possibility  of  concession.  "You  can  surrender 
at  any  time,"  he  said.  "  It  will  be  time  enough  to  surrender 
when  you  are  beaten."  They  began  their  deliberations  by 
concession,  and  surrendered  without  an  engagement,  fully 
a  month  before  the  time  for  discussion  and  for  the  arrival 
of  reinforcements  of  public  opinion  from  their  constituen 
cies  could  have  expired.  They  made  indecent  haste  to 
precipitate  themselves  at  the  feet  of  their  adversaries,  as 
though  they  supposed  their  humiliation  would  be  imputed 
to  them  for  righteousness. 

Mr.  Tilden  advised  them  to  trust  the  people,  to  stand  by 
them  and  the  Constitution ;  and  no  one  American  statesman 
had  ever  a  better  right,  from  experience,  to  speak  dogmati 
cally  on  that  subject. 

Instead  of  trusting  the  people,  they  conducted  all  their 
negotiations  in  secret,  and  suppressed  discussion  until 
everything  was  surrendered  worth  saving,  or  that  discus 
sion  might  have  saved. 

When  it  was  decided  to  submit  the  issue  to  arbitration, 
Mr.  Tilden  insisted  that  the  law  creating  the  arbitrators 
should  require  them  to  decide  the  issue  on  its  merits,  and 
not  leave  to  them  the  determination  of  what  were  to  be 
their  duties.  Firmness  upon  this  point,  to  which  the  Re 
publicans  of  the  Senate,  sooner  or  later,  must  have  yielded, 
would  most  certainly  have  resulted  in  confirming  the  elec 
tion  of  the  candidate  of  the  people's  choice. 

This  wise  advice  was  rejected,  and  rejected,  too,  for 
clowns'  swords  and  Quaker  guns.  As  the  Hon.  Henry 
Watterson  most  fitly  said  : 

VOL.  II.  — 6 


82  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"Mr.  Tilden  was  the  one  man  who  took  in  the  whole 
case  and  provided  a  plan  to  compass  it.  That  plan  was  for 
the  House  of  Representatives  to  exercise  its  constitutional 
right  to  share  in  the  count  of  the  vote,  no  State  to  be 
counted  except  by  the  concurrence  of  both  Houses,  pre 
cisely  as  had  been  done  in  all  preceding  elections,  each 
State  lacking  the  concurrence  of  the  two  Houses  to  be  thrown 
out ;  in  the  event  of  a  failure  of  either  candidate  by  this 
process  of  throwing  out  to  secure  a  majority  of  all  the  votes, 
the  House  to  elect  the  President  and  the  Senate  to  elect  the 
Yice-President.  That  was  Mr.  Tilden's  plan,  pure  and 
simple.  It  sprang  directly  from  the  Constitution,  the  law, 
and  the  practice.  To  overreach  it,  the  conspirators  must 
proceed  openly  to  treason  and  usurpation.  In  that  event, 
the  House  still  had  its  right  to  elect,  and,  '  if  it  elect  me,' 
said  Mr.  Tilden  at  the  time, '  I  will  go  to  Washington  and 
take  the  oath  if  I  am  shot  for  it  the  next  day.' 

"  Mr.  Tilden's  plan  embraced  no  shilly-shallying  or  fool 
ishness.  It  meant  business.  He  had  to  move  either  by 
force  or  by  law.  Force  was  out  of  the  question.  The 
country  was  not  prepared  for  war,  and  the  party  would  not 
follow  him  into  war.  All  that  a  show  of  fight  on  his  part 
could  do  would  be  to  inflame  a  few  excited  spirits  and  play 
into  the  hands  of  the  conspirators,  who  had  the  tools,  and 
only  wanted  the  pretext  to  come  down  upon  the  unorgan 
ized  and  helpless  Democrats.  Wisely  he  declined  either  to 
raffle  or  to  bluff  for  the  presidency.  He  proposed  to  pro 
ceed  by  law,  — the  law  of  every  preceding  electoral  count, 
—  and  to  force  the  Republicans,  if  bent  upon  their  work  of 
usurpation,  to  resort  to  violence  and  treason.  He  believed 
they  would  break  down  before  they  got  through  with  it. 
Believing  in  the  people,  his  idea  was  that  the  people 
needed  only  to  be  educated  in  their  rights  to  maintain  them. 
He  presented  a  line  of  action.  He  prepared  a  magazine  of 
instruction.  These  were  set  aside,  and,  in  lieu  of  them,  a 
bridge  was  constructed,  over  which  the  conspirators  could, 
and  did,  walk  in  safety." 

On  the  31st  January  the  commission  was  elected, — three 
Republicans  and  two  Democrats  being  taken,  by  agreement, 
from  the  Senate,  and  three  Democrats  and  two  Republicans 
from  the  House. 


THE    CAUDINE    FORKS  83 

REPUBLICANS     FROM   THE    SENATE. 

George  F.  Edmunds,  of  Vermont. 
Frederick  T.  Frelinghuysen,  of  New  Jersey. 
Oliver  P.  Morton,  of  Indiana. 

DEMOCRATS    FROM    THE     SENATE. 

Allen  G.  Thurman,  of  Ohio. 
Thomas  F.  Bayard,  of  Delaware. 

DEMOCRATS     FROM    THE    HOUSE. 

Josiah  G.  Abbott,  of  Massachusetts. 
Henry  B.  Payne,  of  Ohio. 
Eppa  Hunton,  of  Virginia. 

REPUBLICANS  FROM  THE  HOUSE. 

James  A.  Garfield,  of  Ohio. 
George  F.  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts. 

The  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  designated  in  the 
bill  were  : 

DEMOCRATS. 

Nathan  Clifford,  of  Maine. 
Stephen  J.  Field,  of  California. 

REPUBLICANS. 

Samuel  F.  Miller,  of  Iowa. 
William  Strong,  of  Pennsylvania. 

The  fifth  justice  elected  by  these  was  Joseph  P.  Brad 
ley,  of  New  Jersey. 

In  all,  seven  Democrats  and  eight  Republicans. 

It  was  determined  by  the  Republicans  in  caucus  to  leave 
Senator  Conkling  off  the  Electoral  Commission,  though  he 
had  been  more  influential  probably  than  any  other  Senator 
in  securing  the  passage  of  the  bill  creating  it.1 

1  Mr.  Childs  says  :  "  Grant  was  the  originator  of  the  plan.  He  sent  for 
Mr.  Conkling,  and  said  with  deep  earnestness :  k  This  matter  is  a  serious 


84  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE TV 

Colliding  was  omitted  because  he  was  known  to  be  in 
accord  with  the  President  in  thinking  that  the  vote  of 
Louisiana  rightfully  belonged  to  Mr.  Tilden.  He  was  the 
only  Republican  Senator  on  the  committee  who  was  omit 
ted  from  the  commission.  Colliding  had  agreed  to  address 
the  Electoral  Commission  in  opposition  to  its  counting 
the  electoral  vote  of  Louisiana  for  Hayes.  Various  explana 
tions  of  his  failure  to  do  so  are  in  circulation.  I  have  not 
been  able  to  determine  which  of  them  all  had  the  demerit 
of  securing  his  silence. 

On  the  6th  of  December  the  electors  of  the  State  of 
New  York  assembled  at  the  capitol  at  Albany,  organized 
by  the  election  of  Horatio  Seymour,  president  of  the  col 
lege,  and  proceeded  to  cast  the  electoral  vote  of  the  State  of 
Xew  York  for  Tilden  for  President  and  Hendricks  for  Vice- 
President.1  On  taking  the  chair  Mr.  Seymour  became 
the  interpreter  of  the  profound  concern  which  had  been 
awakened  among  the  people  of  all  parties  in  Mr.  Tilden's 
native  State  by  the  rumors  which  were  coming  from  the 
South.  Time  has  given  to  Mr.  Seymour's  remarks  a  per 
tinence  and  an  importance  which  was  hardly  accorded  to 
them  at  the  time  of  their  utterance.  After  referring  to  the 
fact  that  the  year  in  which  they  were  about  to  participate 
in  the  election  of  a  new  President  of  the  United  States  was 
the  hundredth  anniversary  of  our  existence  as  an  indepen 
dent  people,  he  continued : 

"  At  this  moment  of  general  congratulation  the  people 
were  startled  by  the  assertion  that  there  had  been  dis 
covered  in  remote  Southern  States  the  exact  number  of 

one,  and  the  people  feel  it  deeply.  I  think  this  Electoral  Commission  ought 
to  be  appointed.'  Conkling  answered  :  l  Mr.  President,  Senator  Morton  is 
opposed  to  it  and  to  your  efforts.  But  if  you  wish  the  commission  carried, 
I  can  do  it.'  He  said,  1 1  wish  it  done.'  " 

1  Tilden's  popular  majority  over  Hayes  in  the  State  of  New  York  was 
32,818,  and  the  largest  aggregate  vote  ever  cast  up  to  that  time  in  that  State. 
It  exceeded  Grant's  vote  in  1872  by  81,298,  and  Greeley's  of  the  same  year 
by  134,764. 


85 


electoral  votes  which  would  be  given  to  and  would  elect  the 
presidential  candidate  who  was  not  the  choice  of  the  ma 
jority  of  the  American  people.  This  surprise  was  greater 
because  it  was  one  of  the  charges  made  by  the  Republicans 
in  the  canvass  to  excite  the  minds  of  the  men  of  the  North, 
that  the  '  solid  South  '  would  support  the  Democratic  ticket. 
It  was  also  urged  that  every  Southern  State  had  a  deep 
interest  in  doing  this,  because  they  meant  to  make  demands 
upon  the  national  treasury.  While  this  charge  was  unjust, 
no  reason  can  be  given  why  South  Carolina,  Florida,  and 
Louisiana  should  not  act  in  accord  with  the  overwhelming 
majorities  of  the  adjoining  States.  The  public  excitement 
reached  the  highest  point  when  it  was  learned  that  the  men 
who  proposed  to  give  these  electoral  votes  to  the  candidate 
of  the  minority  had  been  for  years  past  charged  with  grave 
crimes,  and  that  their  personal  security  against  legal  pun 
ishment  depended  upon  their  success  in  falsifying  the 
returns  of  their  States.  To  them  an  honest  count  meant  just 
punishment.  I  cannot  be  charged  with  partisan  prejudice 
for  any  terms  of  reproach  I  may  use  in  regard  to  the  offi 
cials  of  Louisiana.  I  have  no  words  strong  enough  to 
describe  their  unworthiness  as  set  forth  in  official  reports 
made  by  their  political  friends.  I  cannot,  if  I  would, 
paint  the  aversion  shown  in  the  halls  of  the  capitol  by 
honest  Republicans,  who  shunned  them  as  leprous  men 
whose  touch  and  presence  was  polluting.  Yet  a  few  such 
men,  acting  solely  in  reference  to  their  personal  interests, 
and  who  believe  that  the  blackness  of  their  crimes  strength 
ens  their  claims  upon  the  gratitude  of  their  party,  have 
thus  put  in  peril  the  interests,  the  honor,  and  the  safety  of 
the  American  people.  We  have  not  the  poor  satisfaction 
of  feeling  that  the  dangers  that  threaten  us  are  even  in- 

c>  O 

vested  with  the  ordinary  diginity  of  danger.  The  pride 
of  our  citizens  is  humiliated,  and  their  feelings  of  security 
under  our  laws  and  Constitution  are  lessened,  when  they 
see  that  the  solemn  verdict  of  eight  million  voters  may  be 
reversed  by  less  than  eight  infamous  men  —  men  who  have 
been  branded  by  the  leading  orators,  statesmen,  and  journals 
of  their  own  political  party  as  vile  and  corrupt,  in  terms  more 
vigorous  than  I  can  repeat.  If,  under  our  Constitution,  the 
majority  of  the  electoral  votes  of  the  States  had  been  fairly 
given  to  the  Republican  candidates,  although  the  popular 
majority  is  against  them,  all  would  have  acquiesced  in 


86  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

their  election.  Such  results  are  to  be  regretted,  as  they 
do  not  give  administrations  the  moral  power  they  should 
have  for  their  own  dignity  and  the  good  of  the  country. 
To  elect  men  to  govern  the  Union  against  the  will  of  the 
people  by  unfair  methods  is  revolution.  Such  plots  in 
volve  anarchy,  distress,  and  dishonor.  Those  who  engage 
in  them,  when  they  have  taken  the  first  steps,  must  go  on 
at  all  hazards.  They  have  staked  their  political  fortunes 
—  it  may  be  their  lives  or  liberties — upon  success. 
Fear  goads  them  on  to  darker  acts  of  treason.  The  first 
false  steps  forced  a  reluctant  South  into  rebellion.  In  the 
same  way  they  now  impel  desperate  politicians  who  upheld 
usurpation  in  Louisiana  in  the  past,  to  stand  by  them  now, 
regardless  of  the  honor  and  safety  of  the  American  Union. 
Will  a  free  people  trust  such  men  with  the  reins  of  power  ? 
Will  they  consent  to  be  dragged  into  danger  and  dishonor 
by  men  who  are  goaded  on  by  fears  which  always  haunt  the 
guilty? 

"  The  glory  of  this  centennial  year  thus  fades  away  and 
darkens  into  this  national  shame  and  reproach.  Aroused 
patriotism  can  crush  resistance  to  law,  but  corruption  kills 
honor,  virtue,  and  patriotism,  saps  the  foundations  of 
society,  and  brings  down  the  structure  of  states  and  nations 
in  ruin  and  dishonor. 

"  While  we  implore  all  classes  of  citizens  to  enter  upon 
the  duty  of  deciding  what  shall  be  done  to  avert  threatened 
evils,  we  respectfully  appeal  to  the  great  Republican  party 
to  see  if  the  heaviest  responsibility  for  a  just  decision 
does  not  rest  upon  them.  And  we  make  this  appeal  with 
confidence  that  a  great  organization,  which  has  its  full  share 
of  virtue  and  patriotism,  will  not,  when  it  calmly  reviews 
the  events  of  the  day,  fail  to  do  justice  to  us,  to  them 
selves,  and  to  the  country.  We  do  not  complain  that  under 
the  excitement  of  the  canvass,  or  that  before  the  heat  of 
the  election  should  have  passed  away,  you  may  for  a 
moment  grasp  eagerly  at  a  victory  without  seeing  that  such 
a  victory  may  prove  a  curse  to  you  as  well  as  to  others. 
But  we  beg  you  will  reflect,  now  that  you  have  had  exerted 
in  your  behalf,  not  only  the  whole  power  of  the  national 
administration  with  its  hosts  of  officials,  but  that  the  exe 
cution  of  all  the  laws  relating  to  the  election  of  the  officers 
of  the  general  government  was  entirely  in  the  hands  of 
your  partisans.  If  we  look  at  the  provisions  of  these 


HORATIO    SEYMOUR'S    WARNING  87 

laws,  we  find  that  they  contain  features  of  a  startling 
character,  as  they  were  framed  before  the  passions  excited 
by  civil  war  had  been  allayed,  and  with  reference  to  States 
still  looked  upon  as  hostile  to  our  Union.  The  judicial 
officers  of  every  grade  who  interpret  these  laws,  almost 
without  exception,  belong  to  your  party.  The  marshals 
who  execute  them  are  heated  politicians,  the  very  tenure 
of  whose  offices  depends  upon  the  success  of  your  ticket. 
They  can  summon  a  vast  array  of  deputies,  and  all  of  these 
may  make  arrests,  in  some  cases  without  process,  and  by 
express  enactment  are  placed  above  the  reach  of  the  laws  and 
of  the  judiciary  of  the  States.  At  the  late  election  Repub 
lican  officials,  at  the  expense  of  the  general  government, 
could  examine  every  registry  in  the  principal  toAvns  and 
cities.  They  could  and  did  arrest  men  for  accidental 
clerical  errors  of  others  in  giving  the  name  or  the  number 
of  a  house.  In  only  one  instance  under  these  laws  was 
there  a  recognition  of  the  party  opposed  to  the  administra 
tion.  They  were  entitled  to  one  of  the  two  supervisors  of 
election  at  each  polling-place,  but  these  were  to  be  selected 
by  persons  all  of  whom  belonged  to  the  party  in  power. 
We  do  not  complain  of  the  enforcement  of  these  laws.  On 
the  contrary,  we  point  with  satisfaction  to  the  fact  that 
they  furnished  the  proof  made  by  their  partisan  opponents, 
that  the  Democratic  vote  was  an  honest  one.  If  fraud  is 
suspected,  it  must  be  the  work  of  others,  not  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party.  Even  if  these  election  laws  had  been  in  all 
cases  fairly  enforced,  they  still  made  a  vast  array  of  parti 
san  forces  and  power,  supported  by  the  common  treasury, 
but  exerted  against  the  party  that  carried  with  it  a  majority 
of  the  American  people.  We  hear  much  of  coercion,  in 
timidation,  and  undue  influences,  but  nothing  approaching 
this  in  power  can  exist  in  any  part  of  our  country.  There 
is  no  organization  which  could  for  a  moment  contend  with 
it,  backed  up  as  it  has  been  by  the  American  army. 

"  We  also  appeal  to  the  Republicans  to  see  if  it  is  not 
true  that  during  the  late  election  the  officials  at  Washington 
overlooked  the  fact  that  they  were  the  government  of  a 
country,  and  acted  throughout  merely  as  the  administration 
of  a  party.  Has  one  step  been  taken,  or  the  army  moved, 
save  at  the  instance  of  their  political  friends  ?  Has  there 
been  a  recognition  of  or  a  consultation  with  a  single  citizen 
who  was  not  allied  to  them  in  interest  and  feeling  ? 


88  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"There  is  a  darker  phase  of  the  last  election.  The  ad 
ministration  sent  out  a  cabinet  officer  to  take  charge  of  the 
canvass  on  behalf  of  the  Republican  party.  His  very  posi 
tion  at  the  head  of  its  managing  committee  made  a  forced 
loan  upon  nearly  one  hundred  thousand  official  dependents. 
It  proclaimed  to  them  in  louder  tones  than  words,  '  You 
must  work.  You  must  vote.  You  must  pay  to  aid  the 
election  of  a  candidate  who  declares  himself  in  favor  of 
civil-service  reform.'  It  told  them  that  if,  believing  and 
acting  upon  his  assurance,  they  followed  their  own  convic 
tions  and  voted  for  his  opponents,  they  would  be  punished 
by  the  loss  of  their  positions.  They  were  forced,  in  thou 
sands  of  cases,  to  submit  to  extortion  with  smiling  faces, 
but  with  heavy  hearts.  If  a  like  intimidation  had  been 
used  in  a  Southern  State,  it  would  have  been  seized  upon  by 
the  administration  as  a  reason  for  declaring  martial  law,  for 
arresting  and  imprisoning  every  suspected  citizen. 

"I  have  too  much  respect  for  the  characters  of  Messrs. 
Hayes  and  Wheeler  to  think  that  they  wish  to  be  put  at  the 
head  of  this  Union  against  the  declared  wishes  of  a  ma 
jority  of  the  American  people.  I  do  not  doubt  that  if  this 
is  to  be  done  by  men  in  Louisiana,  of  whom  they  think  as 
ill  as  we  do,  that  they  would  feel  that  the  highest  offices  of 
state  would  be  for  them  not  positions  of  honor  and  dignity, 
but  political  pillories,  in  which  they  would  stand  to  Nbe 
pointed  at,  now  and  hereafter,  as  the  representatives  of  a 
foul  fraud.  One  thing  all  men  see:  The  Republican  party 
cannot  decide  its  own  case  in  its  own  favor  against  the  ma 
jority  of  the  American  people,  upon  the  certificate  of  branded 
men  in  Louisiana,  without  making  the  body  of  our  citizens 
and  the  ivorld  at  large  feel  that  it  is  a  corrupt  and  partisan 
decision.  Such  judgment  will  not  only  destroy  our  honor 
and  credit  for  the  day,  but  will  be  a  precedent  for  wrong 
doing  in  the  future.  We  cannot  have  Mexican  politics  with 
out  Mexican  finances  and  Mexican  disorders.  The  business 
men  in  all  civilized  countries  have  been  taught  by  recent 
bankruptcies  and  disorders  in  governments,  made  unstable 
by  agitations,  to  be  watchful  and  distrustful  when  they  see 
the  slightest  deviation  from  political  honor,  without  which 
there  can  be  no  financial  honor.  On  the  other  hand,  let  the 
party  now  in  power  yield  to  the  popular  will,  demand 
honest  returns  in  accordance  with  the  Constitution,  bow  to 
the  majesty  of  the  law,  and  then  every  citizen  will  feel  a 


THE    EIGHT    TO    SEVEN    COMMISSION  89 

renewed  confidence  in  our  institutions,  and  the  whole  world 
will  hold  us  in  higher  respect  and  honor." 

The  commission  at  Washington  perfected  its  organiza 
tion  on  the  first  day  of  February,  and  on  the  same  day 
received  the  contested  certificates  of  the  State  of  Florida. 

I  shall  be  brief  in  dealing  with  the  deliberations  of  the 
Electoral  Commission,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  Re- 
publican  members  of  that  tribunal  controlled  it ;  and  upon 
every  question,  I  believe  without  a  single  exception,  bear 
ing  upon  the  success  of  their  candidate,  voted  with  their 
party.  Wherever  his  success  depended  upon  going  behind 
the  returns,  they  went  behind  the  returns ;  when  his  suc 
cess  depended  upon  treating  the  returns  as  sacred  and 
conclusive,  they  were  treated  as  sacred  and  conclusive ; 
and  when  his  success  depended  upon  counting  the  vote  of 
a  federal  office-holder,  though  disqualified  by  the  Consti 
tution  from  serving  as  an  elector,  his  vote  was  counted. 
They  adopted  no  rule  of  law  or  constitutional  construction 
which  was  not  compelled  to  yield  promptly  to  party 
exigencies. 

The  Florida  case  involved  two  vital  questions : 

First,  The  legality  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Return 
ing  Board  in  returning  as  duly  chosen,  and  the  Governor 
of  Florida  in  certifying,  the  appointment  of  Republican 
electors  from  that  State  ;  and, 

Second,  Was  Frederick  C.  Humphreys,  one  of  the 
electors  so  returned  and  certified,  being  at  the  time  holder 
of  an  office  under  the  federal  government,  eligible  under 
the  Constitution,  which  provides  that  no  "person  holding 
an  office  of  trust  or  profit  under  the  United  States  shall  be 
appointed  an  elector  "  ? 

The  commission  disposed  of  the  first  question  by  decid 
ing  by  a  strict  party  vote,  eight  to  seven,  "that  it  is  not 
competent  under  the  Constitution  and  the  law  as  they  ex 
isted  at  the  passage  of  said  act  to  go  into  evidence  aliunde 
the  papers  opened  by  the  President  of  the  Senate  in  the 


90  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

presence  of  the  two  Houses,  to  prove  that  other  persons 
than  those  regularly  certified  to  by  the  Governor  of  the 
State  of  Florida,  in  and  according  to  the  determination  and 
declaration  of  their  appointment  by  the  Board  of  State 
Canvassers  of  said  State  prior  to  the  time  required  for  the 
performance  of  their  duties,  had  been  appointed  electors, 
or  by  counter-proof  to  show  that  they  had  not ;  and  that  all 
proceedings  of  the  courts  or  acts  of  the  Legislature  or  of  the 
executive  of  Florida,  subsequent  to  the  casting  of  the  votes 
of  the  electors  on  the  prescribed  day,  are  inadmissible  for 
any  such  purpose.1 

Here  the  rule  is  formally  laid  down  that  the  commission 
has  no  legal  nor  constitutional  competence  to  go  behind  the 
electoral  certificates  delivered  to  and  opened  by  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  Senate. 

This  rule  held  good  only  so  long  as  it  served  the  purpose 
of  the  majority. 

"As  to  the  objection  made  to  the  eligibility  of  Mr. 
Humphreys,  the  commission  is  of  the  opinion  that,  without 
reference  to  the  question  of  the  effect  of  the  vote  of  an 
ineligible  elector,  the  evidence  does  not  show  that  he  held 
the  office  of  shipping  commissioner  on  the  day  when  the 
electors  were  appointed" 2 

Here  is  the  distinct  admission  that  they  did  take  evidence 
aliunde  the  certificates,  to  prove  that  Mr.  Humphreys  was 
not  ineligible. 

The  reader  is  requested  to  note  that  this  decision  in 
Humphreys'  case  is  made  "  without  reference  to  the  ques 
tion  of  the  effect  of  the  vote  of  an  ineligible  elector." 
They  declined  to  pronounce  against  the  validity  of  such  a 
vote,  for  they  already  had  reasons  for  apprehending  that 
other  cases  would  come  before  them  in  which  the  electors 
would  appear  ineligible  on  the  face  of  the  certificates ;  and 
as  the  loss  of  a  single  electoral  vote  would  have  been  fatal 

1  "  Electoral  Count  of  1877,"  p.  19G. 
8  "  Electoral  Count,"  p.  196. 


THE    EIGHT    TO    SEVEN    COMMISSION  91 

to  their  candidate,  they  did  not  mean  to  commit  themselves 
against  counting  the  vote  of  an  ineligible  elector  if  his  vote 
should  prove  to  be  necessary.  In  other  words,  they  had 
undertaken  to  count  Mr.  Tilden  out  and  their  candidate 
in,  and  they  did  not  propose  to  deprive  themselves  of  the 
liberty  of  so  construing  the  Constitution  as  to  accomplish 
their  purpose. 

When  the  Louisiana  case  was  reached,  it  appeared  that 
two  of  the  electors  certified  by  the  Returning  Board  were 
disqualified  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
four  others  by  the  Constitution  of  Louisiana,  which  pro 
vides  that  "  no  person  shall  at  any  time  hold  more  than  one 
office."  A.  B.  Levissee  when  elected  was  a  United  States 
commissioner,  and  O.  H.  Bre water  was  surveyor  of  the 
United  States  Land  Office.  They  resigned  their  federal 
offices  temporarily,  were  substituted  for  themselves  by 
their  colleagues,  and  voted  for  by  Hayes  and  Wheeler. 
Both  these  men  were  promptly  reappointed  to  their  re 
spective  federal  offices  and  resumed  their  duties.1  When 
their  case  was  reached  by  the  commission,  it  was  manifest 
that  the  majority  could  not  elect  their  candidate  under  the 
rule  laid  down  in  the  Florida  case.  Accordingly  they  held 
"  that  it  is  not  competent  to  prove  that  any  of  said  persons 
so  appointed  electors  as  aforesaid  held  an  office  of  trust  or 
profit  under  the  United  States  at  the  time  when  they  were 
appointed,  or  that  they  were  ineligible  under  the  laws  of 

1  During  the  count  of  the  electoral  votes  in  1837  the  question  of  the 
eligibility  of  electors  was  considered  by  a  Senate  committee  composed  of 
Henry  Clay,  Silas  Wright,  and  Felix  Grundy,  who  reported  that  "  The 
committee  are  of  opinion  that  the  second  section  of  the  second  article  of 
the  Constitution,  which  declares  that  4  no  Senator  or  Representative,  or 
person  holding  an  office  of  trust  or  profit  under  the  United  States,  shall  be 
appointed  an  elector,'  ought  to  be  carried  in  its  whole  spirit  into  rigid  exe 
cution.  .  .  .  This  provision  of  the  Constitution,  it  is  believed,  excludes 
and  disqualifies  deputy  postmasters  from  the  appointment  of  electors  ;  and 
the  disqualification  relates  to  the  time  of  appointment,  and  that  a  resigna 
tion  of  the  office  of  deputy  postmaster  after  his  appointment  as  elector 
would  not  entitle  him  to  vote  as  elector,  under  the  Constitution." 


92  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE  N 

the  State,  or  any  other  matter  offered  to  be  proved  aliunde 
the  said  certificate  and  papers."  l 

The  commission  also  decided  "  that  the  returning  officers 
of  elections  who  canvassed  the  votes  at  the  election  for 
electors  in  Louisiana  were  a  legally  constituted  body,  by 
virtue  of  a  constitutional  law,  and  that  a  vacancy  in  said 
body  did  not  vitiate  its  proceedings."  The  constitution  of 
Louisiana,  article  forty-eight,  prescribes  who  the  returning 
officers  of  elections  shall  be ;  to  wit,  the  officers  of  elec 
tions  at  the  different  polling-places  throughout  the  State. 
Senator  Edmunds,  on  the  16th  of  March,  1875,  declared  in 
the  Senate  in  unequivocal  language  that  the  election  law 
creating  the  Returning  Board  was  in  conflict  with  the  con 
stitution  of  the  State.  And  yet  Mr.  Commissioner  Ed 
munds,  on  Feb.  16,  1877,  voted  that  the  election  law  of 
Louisiana  creating  the  Returning  Board  was  not  in  con 
flict  with  the  constitution  of  the  State.  Representative 
George  F.  Hoar  made  a  report  to  the  House  of  Represent 
atives  in  1875,  in  which  he  used  the  following  language 
in  regard  to  the  Louisiana  Returning  Board's  conduct  in 
the  election  of  1874  :  "  We  are  all  clearly  of  the  opinion 
that  the  Returning  Board  had  no  right  to  do  anything 

O  t/  O 

except  to  canvass  and  compile  the  returns  which  were  law 
fully  made  to  them  by  the  local  officers,  except  in  cases 
where  they  were  accompanied  by  the  certificates  of  the 
supervisor  or  commissioner  provided  in  the  third  section." 
How  much  more  grossly  had  the  Returning  Board  violated 
the  law  in  1876  than  in  1874  ;  and  yet  Mr.  Commissioner 
Hoar  voted,  Feb.  16,  1877,  that  the  presidential  electors 
returned  as  elected  by  that  Returning  Board  were  legally 
elected. 

When  the  Oregon  contested  case  came  up  before  the 
commission,  the  electoral  tribunal  did  not  permit  itself  to 
be  in  the  least  embarrassed  by  its  previous  rulings.  By 
the  laws  of  Oregon  its  returning  officers  were  the  Governor 

1  "  Electoral  Count,"  p.  422. 


THE    EIGHT    TO    SEVEN    COMMISSION  93 

and  the  Secretary  of  State.  One  of  the  Republican  elec 
tors  was  a  postmaster,  and  consequently  disqualified  by  the 
Constitution  for  serving  as  an  elector.  The  Secretary  of 
State,  therefore,  gave  the  certificate  to  his  opponent,  E.  A. 
Cronin,  a  Democratic  elector.  Cronin  voted  for  Tilden 
and  Hendricks.  One  copy  of  a  certificate  of  his  vote  as  a 
Tilden  elector  in  clue  form  was  forwarded  by  mail  to  the 
President  of  the  Senate,  a  second  was  filed  with  the  United 
States  District  Judge,  and  the  third  was  borne  by  Cronin 
himself  to  Washington  and  delivered  to  the  President  of 
the  Senate.  His  vote,  therefore,  for  Tilden  and  Hendricks 
was  legally  and  regularly  before  the  two  Houses  of  Con- 
gress.  Cronin  had  unnecessarily  gone  through  the  form 
of  organizing  an  electoral  college  w^hich  neither  the  laws 
nor  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  require,  and  for 
that  purpose  had  appointed  two  persons  to  act  with  him. 
As  one  vote  for  Tilden  in  Oregon  would  be  as  fatal  to 
Hayes  as  one  in  Louisiana  or  Florida  would  have  been, 
this  vote  had  to  be  rescued  as  a  brand  from  the  burning. 
But  how  ?  Here  was  a  Tilden  elector  regularly  certified  by 
the  authorized  returning  officers.  To  reject  him  was  to 
elect  in  his  place  a  man  certified  to  them  to  have  been  an 
officer  of  the  federal  government.  Was  it  to  be  prepared 
for  this  emergency  that  they  forbore  in  the  Florida  case  to 
decide  whether  the  holding  of  a  federal  office  disqualified 
Humphreys  as  an  elector?  It  was  a  very  aggravating  case 
for  the  Republican  commissioners  to  deal  with,  but  they 
rose  to  the  level  of  the  occasion ;  "  the  hope  was  not  drunk 
wherein  they  had  dressed  themselves ; "  they  did  not 
weakly  let  "I  dare  not"  wait  upon  "I  would,"  but  boldly 
decided  "  that  the  Secretary  of  State  did  canvass  the  returns 
in  the  case  before  us,  and  thereby  ascertained  that  J.  C. 
Cartwright,  W.  H.  Odell,  and  J.  W.  Watts  had  a  majority 
of  the  voles  given  for  electors,  and  had  the  highest  number 
of  votes  for  that  office,  and  by  the  express  language  of  the 
statute  are  deemed  elected."  They  further  held  "that 


94  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

the  refusal  or  failure  of  the  Governor  of  Oregon  to  sign 
the  certificate  of  the  election  of  the  persons  so  elected  does 
not  have  the  effect  of  defeating  their  appointment  as  such 
electors."1 

The  commissioners  made  this  decision  in  favor  of  "Watts, 
the  Eepublican  elector,  solely  upon  the  ground  that  he  had 
"  the  highest  number  of  votes."  But  if  the  highest  number 
of  votes  was  sufficient  for  an  elector  in  Oregon,  why  was  it 
not  sufficient  in  Florida  where  the  electoral  ticket  had  an 
incontestable  majority  of  ninety-one,  and  in  Louisiana 
where  it  had  an  incontestable  majority  of  over  7,000. 
They  altogether  suppress  the  supreme  fact  that  the  Sec 
retary  of  State  had  certified  to  the  Governor  that  another 
person  had  been  elected  and  that  Watts  had  not  been  ;  and 
the  further  fact  that  the  Secretary  of  State  and  Governor, 
and  no  one  else,  by  law  constituted  the  returning  officers 
of  Oregon.  This  suppression  was  necessary  because  in 
Louisiana  they  had  held  that  an  elector  is  not  appointed 
according  to  the  terms  of  the  Constitution  until  he  has  re 
ceived  the  certificate  of  such  appointment  from  the  return 
ing  officers.  Therefore  the  decision  which  elected  Watts 
in  Oregon  should  have  admitted  all  the  Tilden  and  Hen- 
dricks  electors  in  Louisiana  and  Florida,  and  the  decisions 
in  Louisiana  and  Florida  should  have  elected  a  Tilden 
elector  in  Oregon,  had  the  commission  attached  any  im 
portance  to  the  virtue  of  consistency  in  their  rulings,  or 
felt  that  their  appointment  on  that  commission  invested 
them  with  any  other  function  or  imposed  upon  them  any 
other  duty  than  to  make  Hayes  President  without  violating 
any  more  nor  any  less  of  the  ten  commandments  and  the 
laws  of  their  country  than  was  necessary.  Like  Cassan 
dra's  lover,  they  adapted  the  ethics  of  the  Pagan  instead 
of  the  Christian  code  for  their  purpose : 

"  Muteraus  clypeos,  Danaumque  insignia  nobis 
Aptemus  :  dolus  an  Virtus,  quis  in  hoste  requirat  ?  " 

1  "  Electoral  Count  of  1877,"  p.  640. 


UNIVERSITY 

or 

THE  COMMISSION   FOR    SALE  95 


There  were  at  least  nine  Republican  electors  who  were 
disqualified  by  virtue  of  their  holding  offices  under  the 
federal  government  at  the  time  of  their  election.  Only 
in  the  cases  of  Florida,  Louisiana,  and  Oregon,  however, 
could  the  question  of  their  eligibility  be  raised  before  the 
commission,  and  in  no  two  of  these  cases  were  the  decisions 
the  same.  And  yet  the  members  of  this  commission  were 
severally  sworn  as  the  Holy  Evangelists,  "  to  impartially 
examine  and  consider  all  questions  submitted,"  . 
"  and  a  true  judgment  give  thereon,  agreeably  to  the  Con 
stitution  and  the  laws." 

It  seems  not  inappropriate  to  insert  here  an  entry  which 
I  made  in  my  diary  on  the  9th  of  February,  1877  : 

"  On  Thursday  (the  8th)  Tilden  told  me  a  man  had  called 
to  say  that  the  commission  was  for  sale.  When  I  ex 
pressed  an  incredulous  sort  of  astonishment,  he  said  that 
one  of  the  justices  (Republican)  was  ready  to  give  his  vote 
for  the  Tilden  electors  for  $200,000.  I  asked  which  one. 
He  said  he  thought  he  would  not  tell  me  that  at  present. 
I  told  him  it  was  improbable,  for  the  judges  were  all  wTell 
paid  and  had  life  terms  of  their  office.  He  said  the  jus 
tice  in  question  is  reported  to  be  embarrassed  from  old 
engagements  and  obligations.  .  .  .  Tilden  also  told  me 
that  the  Florida  Returning  Board  was  offered  him,  and  for 
the  same  money.  ( That,'  he  said,  r  seems  to  be  the  stand 
ard  figure.' " 

In  a  notable  debate  in  the  House  of  Representatives  in 
February,  1879,  the  Hon.  A.  S.  Hewitt,  replying  to  a  scur 
rilous  allusion  to  Mr.  Tilden  which  Mr.  Garfield,  who  had 
been  a  member  of  the  Electoral  Commission,  had  been 
betrayed  into  making,  confirmed  the  report  that  the  presi 
dency  had  been  in  the  market.  Time  has  only  added 
significance  and  gravity  to  his  manly  expostulation. 

"  I  think,  however,  that  I  can  account  for  this  extraordi 
nary  proceeding.  During  the  progress  of  this  debate,  a 
gallant  soldier,  an  able  lawyer  who  has  been  attorney-gen 
eral  of  my  State,  and  who  is  a  stanch  Republican,  General 


96  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

Francis  C.  Barlow,  of  New  York,  had  given  evidence  on 
the  lower  floor  of  this  capitol  that  the  vote  of  the  State 
of  Florida  had  been  unjustly  counted  for  Mr.  Hayes ;  the 
conclusion  being  that  if  it  had  been  counted  for  Mr.  Tilden, 
he  to-day  would  have  been  occupying  the  White  House 
instead  of  its  present  de  facto  and  not  dejtire  tenant.  This 
evidence  must  have  touched  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  to 
the  quick ;  it  must  have  revived  the  memories  of  eight  to 
seven ;  it  must  have  reminded  him  how,  when  the  electoral 
bill  was  pending  in  this  House,  for  one  whole  evening 
he  devoted  himself  to  proving  that  the  law  creating  the 
commission  was  unconstitutional,  but  that  if  it  should  be 
passed,  it  would  be  the  duty  of  the  commission  to  take 
evidence  of  fraud  and  to  go  behind  the  returns.  And  yet 
when  he  was  made  a  judge,  acting  under  a  law  which  he 
had  declared  to  be  unconstitutional,  and  which,  as  he  had 
affirmed,  required  evidence  to  be  taken,  he  consented  to 
violate  the  Constitution  and  to  deny  the  admission  of  the 
evidence  which  was  necessary  to  arrive  at  the  truth.  When 
the  great  wTrong  thus  done  by  the  vote  of  the  gentleman 
from  Ohio  —  for  it  was  his  casting  vote  in  every  case  that 
excluded  evidence  —  was  thus  made  manifest  by  the  testi 
mony  of  General  Barlow,  did  that  feeling  of  remorse  which 
is  the  attribute  of  great  minds  force  him  to  attempt  to 
drown  the  reproaches  of  conscience  by  alleging  that  the 
man  who  to-day  is  of  right  President  of  the  United  States 
was  the  'author  and  finisher'  of  frauds,  and  therefore 
should  be  excluded  from  the  high  office  to  which  he  had 
been  elected  by  the  people  ? 

"  '  High  minds  of  native  pride  and  force 
Must  deeply  feel  thy  pangs,  remorse  ! 
Fear  for  their  scourge  mean  villains  have  ; 
Thou  art  the  torturer  of  the  brave.' 

"  Gentlemen  on  the  other  side  realize  fully  that  a  great 
wrong  cannot  be  committed  in  this  country  without  being 
finally  redressed  by  the  voice  of  the  people,  for  they  re 
member  what  took  place  in  General  Jackson's  case  in  1828, 
and  they  know  that  the  voice  of  the  people  is  the  voice  of 
God,  who  has  declared,  '  Vengeance  is  mine,  I  will  repay, 
saith  the  Lord.'  They  see  no  refuge  from  the  coming 
judgment  but  in  destroying  the  character  of  the  man  whom 
they  have  robbed.  For  months  an  uninterrupted  stream 


THE    LOUISIANA    CERTIFICATE    DOCTORED        07 

of  abuse,  misrepresentation,  and  calumny  has  been  poured 
out  upon  his  devoted  head,  but  the  testimony  of  the  last 
few  days  has  justified  the  assertion  which  I  have  never 
failed  to  make  when  Mr.  Tilden's  character  and  integrity 
have  been  attacked,  that  not  one  particle  of  dishonest  action 
can  be  traced  to  him,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  now  mani 
fest  to  all  men  that  he  scorned  to  purchase  the  presidency 
which  found  a  ready  market  elseiuhere" 

Mr.  Hewitt  has  more  recently  stated  at  a  public  meeting 
in  New  York  that  the  electoral  vote  of  one  of  the  contested 
States  had  been  offered  to  him  for  a  price. 

There  is  one  more  chapter  in  the  history  of  this  extraor 
dinary  tribunal,  without  which  it  would  be  incomplete. 

.     "  Long  a  est  injuria,  longae  ambiges" 

When  Anderson  was  selected  to  bring  the  certificates 
of  the  Louisiana  Returning  Board  to  Washington,  he 
handed  the  package  to  Ferry,  the  President  of  the  Senate, 
on  the  24th  of  December.  Instead  of  accepting  it  as  he 
should  have  done,  for  better  or  for  worse,  Ferry  called 
Anderson's  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  endorsement  on 
the  outside,  setting  forth  the  contents  of  each  envelope,  had 
not  been  signed  by  the  electors  as  the  law  required,  and 
recommended  Anderson  to  examine  the  law  and  see  whether 
the  certificate  had  been  made  in  accordance  with  it. 

It  was  the  duty  of  the  President  of  the  Senate  to  receive 
the  package,  to  open  it  only  in  the  presence  of  both  Houses 
of  Congress,  and  leave  them  to  decide  what  to  do  with  it. 
He  had  previously  received  the  duplicate  of  the  package 
handed  him  by  Anderson ;  and  he  knew  that  the  electors 
were  functus  officii  and  no  more  competent  to  repair  any 
defect  of  omission  or  commission  in  their  returns,  weeks 
after  their  legal  existence  had  ceased,  than  to  recall  the 
cloud  which  had  shaded  them  the  preceding  day.  Con 
trary  to  the  Constitution,  which  required  that  the  elec 
toral  return  should  be  opened  by  the  President  of  the 

VOL.  II.  —  7 


98  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

Senate  in  the  presence  of  both  Houses  of  Congress,  Ander 
son's  package  was  opened  in  Washington  by  parties  whose 
names  have  not  officially  transpired,  when,  to  the  conster 
nation  of  the  Hayes  engineers,  it  was  discovered  that  the 
lack  of  the  electors'  signatures  on  the  envelope  was  by  no 
means  the  only,  nor  the  most  serious,  defect  of  the  return ; 
that  instead  of  voting  separate  ballots  for  President  and 
Vice-President,  as  required  by  the  Constitution,  they  had 
voted  for  both  on  one  ballot,  and  had  failed  to  make  their 
return  of  the  votes  cast  for  each  candidate  on  distinct 
lists  with  separate  certificates,  also  express  requirements 
of  the  Constitution. 

There  was  but  one  course  left  for  them  to  save  their  candi 
date.  The  certificates  made  out  and  signed  by  the  electors 
in  triplicate  on  the  6th  of  December  must  be  suppressed, 
and  false  ones,  purporting  to  comply  with  the  provisions  of 
the  Constitution,  must  be  substituted  for  them.  Anderson 
left  Washington  the  night  of  the  day  he  reached  there, 
arrived  in  New  Orleans  on  the  morning  of  December  28th, 
and  repaired  at  once  to  the  quarters  of  Governor  Kellogg. 
The  Governor  sent  for  his  private  secretary,  Clark,  who  at 
once  set  about  the  preparation  of  new  certificates.  There 
was  no  time  to  waste.  The  forged  certificates  must  be  on 
their  way  to  Washington  at  5.20  P.M.  of  the  next  day,  — 
one  set  by  the  hand  of  a  messenger,  and  another  set  by  the 
mail,  —  in  order  to  reach  Washington  within  the  time  fixed 
by  law  for  their  reception,  the  3d  of  January,  1877. 

Kellogg  and  Clark,  however,  with  the  aid  of  Anderson, 
proved  equal  to  the  occasion.  They  had  certificates  printed 
to  correspond  —  paper  and  impression  —  with  the  certifi 
cates  of  December  6th.  The  new  certificates  were  spread 
out  on  a  large  table  in  the  third  floor  of  the  State  House, 
where  they  were  to  be  signed.  Such  of  the  electors  as 
could  be  found  were  taken  up  to  this  room,  one  at  a  time, 
in  the  order  in  which  they  had  signed  the  original  certifi 
cates.  Two,  Levisee  and  Joffroin,  were  away  fully  three 


FORGING    CERTIFICATES    OF   ELECTORS          99 

days'  journey  from  New  Orleans.  Their  autograph  signa 
tures,  therefore,  could  not  be  had.  But  when  the  electors 
who  had  originally  signed  below  the  signatures  of  these 
absentees,  went  up  to  affix  their  names  to  the  new  certifi 
cate,  they  found  the  names  of  the  absentee  electors  in  their 
place.  Who  forged  these  names  is  a  question  now  of  sec 
ondary  importance.  The  accomplices  in  the  fraud  did  not 
agree  in  their  testimony  as  to  the  actual  perpetrator  of  the 
forgery,  though  none  pretended  that  the  names  had  not 
been  forged.  It  would  have  been  idle  to  have  done  so,  as 
the  impossibility  of  either  of  the  two  electors  being  in  New 
Orleans  either  on  the  28th  or  29th  of  December  was  a 
matter  of  common  notoriety. 

These  forged  certificates  were  not  sent  to  Washington 
this  time  by  Anderson,  who  had  taken  the  former  certificates, 
but  by  a  clerk  in  the  State  auditor's  office,  named  Hill, 
who  on  his  arrival  went  first  to  Zachariah  Chandler,  the 
secretary  of  the  treasury,  and  chairman  of  the  Republican 
national  committee,  to  whom  he  bore  a  letter  also  from 
Governor  Kellogg.  Chandler  read  Kellogg's  letter,  and 
then  directed  Hill  to  go  to  the  capitol  and  deliver  the  forged 
electoral  certificates  to  Mr.  Ferry,  the  President  of  the 
Senate.  Senator  Sherman  was  invited  by  Mr.  Ferry  to 
come  in  and  witness  the  delivery  and  receipt  of  the 
package.  That  ceremony  over,  Sherman  took  Hill  into 
the  room  of  the  finance  committee,  and  wrote  a  letter  to 
Kellogg,  which  he  delivered  sealed  to  the  messenger  to  be 
delivered  to  Kellogg  in  person. 

Thus  far  it  seemed  as  though  this  crevasse,  which  at  first 
threatened  all  their  elaborate  fabric  of  iniquity,  had  been 
closed  up,  or  at  least  gotten  under  control. 

It  was  still  necessary,  however,  to  obtain  from  the  United 
States  district  judge  in  New  Orleans  the  electoral  certifi 
cate  which,  in  accordance  with  the  requirements  of  law, 
had  been  deposited  with  him  on  the  6th  of  December  and 
replace  it  with  one  of  the  certificates  forged  on  the  29th  of 


100  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

December.  The  district  judge  declined  to  grant  the  appli 
cation  for  this  substitution,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  the 
custodian  of  the  package  merely,  and  without  authority  to 
deliver  it  to  any  one  except  upon  a  requisition  from  the 
Speaker  of  the  House.  This  respect  for  the  law  on  the 
part  of  the  judge  seemed  puerile  to  the  Kellogg  "combine," 
but  it  was  none  the  less  awkward. 

When  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  in  their  call  of  the 
States  reached  Louisiana,  Mr.  Ferry,  the  presiding  officer, 
first  handed  to  the  tellers  the  genuine  Kellogg  certificate, 
which  had  come  to  him  by  mail.  Next  the  McEnery 
certificate,  which  had  come  to  him  in  duplicate,  — one  copy 
by  mail  and  the  other  by  messenger ;  and  next  the  forged 
Kellogg  certificate,  of  which  two  copies  —  one  by  mail  and 
the  other  by  the  messenger  Hill  —  had  reached  him ;  and 
finally  a  certificate  signed  by  John  Smith,  declaring  that 
the  vote  of  Louisiana  had  been  cast  for  Peter  Cooper. 

This  burlesque  certificate  was  read  as  the  others  had  been, 
but  the  convention  unanimously  ordered  it  to  be  suppressed 
and  no  mention  made  of  it  in  the  record. 

It  is  now  generally  understood  that  this  burlesque  certif 
icate  was  sent  in  to  create  such  a  diversion  of  the  attention 
of  the  convention  as  to  enable  the  irregularity  of  the  other 
certificates  to  escape  observation.  If  so  it  was  a  complete 
success,  for  not  one  of  the  Democratic  lawyers,  managers, 
Senators,  or  Representatives  remarked  that  there  was  one 
certificate  made  by  the  Republican  electors  of  Louisiana 
which  did  not  comply  with  the  requirements  of  the  Consti 
tution,  and  duplicates  of  another,  from  the  same  electors, 
which  were  in  proper  form,  though  forged, — a  circumstance 
which  could  hardly  have  been  possible  but  for  the  con 
fusion  and  distraction  which  resulted  from  the  reading  of  this 
Peter  Cooper  certificate  and  the  discussion  which  it  pro 
voked. 

No  trace  of  this  paper  remained  after  the  recess  of  the 
joint  convention  on  the  day  it  was  read.  It  was  probably 


FORGED    CERTIFICATES    OF   ELECTORS         101 

carried  off  by  its  author,  who  no  doubt  had  more  serious 
motives  for  sending  it  than  to  perpetrate  a  practical  joke, 
and  equally  good  motives  for  having  it  disappear  when  its 
purpose  was  accomplished.  The  papers  in  the  contested 
case  went  to  the  Electoral  Commission  immediately  after  the 
joint  convention  adjourned.  When  the  secretary  began  to 
read  them,  and  before  there  had  been  an  opportunity  for 
any  one  to  inspect  them,  one  of  the  Democratic  commis 
sioners  moved  that  the  reading  be  dispensed  with  and  the 
papers  printed.  The  motion  was  not  opposed.  Thereupon 
the  Hon.  Nathan  Clifford  marked  the  certificates  severally 
for  identification  as  follows : 

The  first  certificate  of  the  Kellogg  electors  which  did 
not  meet  the  constitutional  requirements  was  marked  "No. 
1,  N.  C.  ;"the  Democratic  certificate  which  was  all  right 
was  marked  "No.  2,  N.  C.  ;"  and  the  forged  certificate  was 
marked  "No.  3,  N.  C."  With  these  marks  on -the  certifi 
cates,  they  were  sent  to  the  printer ;  but  not  to  the  public 
printer,  not  to  the  congressional  printer,  not  to  the  gov 
ernment  printer,  in  accordance  with  the  invariable  rule  be 
fore  and  after  this,  but  to  a  private  job  printer.  When 
they  came  back  printed  the  distinguishing  marks  put  on 
them  by  Judge  Clifford  were  found  to  have  been  omitted ; 
and  what  is  even  more  extraordinary,  this  job  printer,  in 
stead  of  sending  back  the  originals  with  the  printed  copies 
to  the  secretary  of  the  commission,  who  was  their  respon 
sible  custodian,  sent  only  the  originals  to  the  secretary, 
and  had  two  of  his  press  boys  distribute  the  printed  copies 
among  the  members  of  the  commission  and  the  counsel. 

It  is  no  longer  susceptible  of  demonstration  that  this  job 
printer  did  not  distribute  copies  of  the  genuine  certificate 
marked  "  No.  1,  N.  C.  ;  "  but  if  they  were  distributed,  it 
seems  unaccountable  that  neither  of  the  Democratic  com 
missioners,  neither  of  the  Democratic  lawyers,  —  some  of 
them  the  ablest  in  the  country,  —  nor  any  one  of  the  two 
hundred  Democratic  members  of  Congress,  each  and  every 


102  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

one  of  whom  was  already  sufficiently  familiar  with  the 
means  by  which  Republican  electors  had  been  returned  in 
Louisiana  to  be  misled  by  no  presumptions  in  favor  of  any 
thing  they  did,  —  it  seems,  I  repeat,  unaccountable  that 
none  of  these  gentlemen  should  have  observed  that  the 
copies  of  certificate  No.  1  did  not  correspond  with  the 
copies  of  the  forged  certificate  No.  3. 

Had  printed  copies  of  the  genuine  certificate  ''No.  1, 
N.  C.,"  been  distributed,  it  was  practically  impossible  that 
its  defective  form  should  have  escaped  detection.  Its  com 
parison  with  the  other  forged  certificate  "No.  3,  N.  C.," 
must  have  been  made,  and  the  difference  between  them  have 
exploded  the  whole  plot.  Nothing  of  this  kind  happened, 
however,  and  we  are  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  two 
copies  of  the  forged  certificate  were  distributed  by  this  job 
printer,  instead  of  one  copy  of  the  genuine  and  defective 
certificate,  and  one  copy  of  the  formally  correct  but  forged 
certificate. 

This  curious  sequence  of  strange  and  unforeseen  con 
traries  which  beset  the  final  action  of  the  Louisiana  Re 
turning  Board  from  the  day  that  action  was  reduced  to 
writing,  was  destined  to  acquire  additional  proportion  and 
consequence  at  the  hands  of  Senator  Morton.  When  the 
Electoral  Commission  had  decided,  by  a  strictly  party  vote 
of  eight  to  seven,  to  count  the  electoral  vote  of  Louisiana 
for  Hayes  and  Wheeler,  the  Senator  from  Indiana  was 
careful  in  his  motion  to  that  effect  to  specify  "  the  electoral 
votes  in  the  certificate  'No.  1,  N.  C.,'"  the  genuine  but 
constitutionally  defective  one.  This  was  done,  so  far  as 
Mr.  Morton  was  concerned,  with  full  knowledge  that  the 
other  set  of  electoral  certificates  from  Louisiana,  and  the 
only  ones  made  out  in  the  form  required  by  the  Constitu 
tion,  "  were  not  to  be  depended  on." 

When  later  the  record  of  the  proceedings  in  Congress 
and  of  the  Electoral  Commission  came  to  be  made  up,  it 
was  made  to  appear  that  there  were  before  Congress  and 


"HANGMAN'S    DAY"    IN    WASHINGTON          103 

the  commission  the  certificate  of  the  Democratic  electors 
and  the  genuine  but  defective  certificate  of  the  Republican 
electors,  and  no  others;  whereas  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  Congress  and  the  commission  had  before  them 

O 

and  considered  only  two  copies  of  the  forged  certificates 
and  no  other  Republican  certificates,  and  that  they  never 
had  an  opportunity  of  considering  the  defects  of  the  gen 
uine  certificate  which  was  put  unchallenged  upon  their 
record. 

The  decision  of  the  Electoral  Commission  in  the  case  of 
Oregon,  the  last  disputed  State,  was  communicated  to  the 
joint  convention  of  the  Houses  of  Congress  on  Thursday, 
the  first  day  of  March.  The  convention  then  proceeded 
with  the  count,  which  it  prosecuted  to  its  completion  on  the 
following  Friday  morning  at  ten  minutes  past  four,  at  which 
hour  the  President  of  the  Senate,  Thomas  W.  Ferry,  of 
Michigan,  announced  that  Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  of  Ohio,  had 
received  185  electoral  votes,  a  majority  of  the  whole  num 
ber,  and  had  been  duly  elected  President  of  the  United 
States ;  and  that  William  A.  Wheeler,  of  New  York,  had 
received  a  like  majority,  and  had  been  duly  elected  Vice- 
Preside  nt  of  the  United  States. 

There  was  a  ghastly  sort  of  fitness  in  selecting  "  hang 
man's  clay  "  on  which  to  stain  the  annals  of  the  great  Re 
public  with  this  ignominious  record. 

"  Exciclat  ilia  dies  aevo,  neo  postera  credant 
Saecula ;  nos  certe  taceamus,  et  obruta  multa 
Nocte  tegi  nostrae  patiamur  criminis  gentis."  l 

Republican  institutions  have  never  received  a  more  seri 
ous  blow,  nor  one  from  which  they  will  be  so  long  in  re 
covering.  If  we  do  these  things  in  the  green  tree,  what 
may  we  be  expected  to  do  in  the  dry  ?  We  may  go  on  for  a 

1  u  May  that  foul  day  be  blotted  in  time's  flight 
And  buried  in  oblivion's  gloom  of  night. 
We  will  at  least  forbear  the  deed  to  name, 
Nor  let  posterity  believe  our  shame." 


104  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

while,  perhaps  indefinitely,  "  grinding  on  the  gudgeons,"  but 
how  restore  the  faith  in  our  institutions,  once  delivered  to 
the  fathers? 

"  I  comprehend  perfectly,"  said  an  eminent  French  jour 
nalist,  with  as  much  wit  as  justice,  "how  we  may  depan- 
theonize  Marat,  but  I  cannot  conceive  how  you  will  ever 
be  able  to  demaratize  the  Pantheon." l 

I  here  dismiss  the  story  of  this  the  most  ignominious 
conspiracy  of  which  modern  history  has  preserved  any  rec 
ord.  I  regret,  for  the  reader's  sake  as  well  as  my  own, 
to  have  felt  compelled  to  dwell  upon  it  at  such  length, 
though  I  have  given  only  an  imperfect  summary,  far  from  a 
complete  list  of  the  varieties  of  crime  by  which  it  was  con 
summated.  If  there  be  any  who  care  to  pursue  the  investi 
gation  further,  they  are  referred  to  the  congressional  record 
of  the  investigations  which  those  crimes  provoked.  I  have 
deemed  it  my  duty  to  penetrate  so  far  only  into  these 

1  On  the  day  previous  to  the  3d  of  March  the  House  of  Representatives, 
by  a  vote  of  137  to  88,  adopted  a  series  of  preambles  introductory  to  the 
following  resolution : 

Resolved  by  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States,  u  That  it 
is  the  duty  of  the  House  to  declare,  and  this  House  does  hereby  solemnly 
declare,  that  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  of  the  State  of  New  York,  received  196 
electoral  votes  for  the  office  of  President  of  the  United  States,  all  of  which 
votes  were  cast  and  lists  thereof  signed,  certified,  and  transmitted  to  the 
seat  of  government,  directed  to  the  President  of  the  Senate,  in  conformity 
with  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States,  by  electors  legally 
eligible  and  qualified  as  such  electors,  each  of  whom  had  been  duly  ap 
pointed  and  elected  in  the  manner  directed  by  the  Legislature  of  the  State 
in  and  for  which  he  cast  his  vote  as  aforesaid ;  and  that  said  Samuel  J. 
Tilden  having  thus  received  the  votes  of  a  majority  of  the  electors  ap 
pointed  as  aforesaid,  he  was  thereby  duly  elected  President  of  the  United 
States  of  'America  for  the  term  of  four  years  commencing  on  the  4th  day 
of  March,  A. D.  1877;  and  this  House  further  declares  that  Thomas  A. 
Hendricks,  having  received  the  same  number  of  electoral  votes  for  the 
office  of  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  that  were  cast  for  Samuel  J. 
Tilden  for  President  as  aforesaid,  and  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same 
manner,  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  House  that  the  said  Thomas  A.  Hendricks, 
of  the  State  of  Indiana,  was  duly  elected  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States  for  the  term  of  four  years  commencing  on  the  4th  day  of  March, 
A.D.  1877." 


THE    END   MADE    TO   JUSTIFY    THE   MEANS    105 

"  corners  of  nastiness  "  as  to  satisfy  all  who  may  take  the 
trouble  to  glance  through  these  pages,  that  electors  favora 
ble  to  Tilden  for  President  were  chosen  by  the  people  of 
the  United  States  in  1876,  and  that  by  a  cumulative  series 
of  frauds  and  crimes,  in  which  leading  national  statesmen, 
cabinet  ministers,  and  persons  occupying  seats  in  the 
highest  judicial  tribunal  in  the  land  were,  some  in  a 
greater,  some  in  a  Iqsser  degree  accomplices,  that  choice 
was  defeated  and  a  usurper  put  in  his  place.  It  is  due  to 
the  memory  of  Mr.  Tilden  that  these  facts  should  be  so 
stated  that  future  historians  shall  have  neither  difficulty  nor 
hesitation  in  taking  note  of  them.1 

AVhy  men  occupying  the  most  exalted  and  responsible 
positions  in  the  country  should  have  ventured  to  compro 
mise  their  reputations  by  this  deliberate  consummation  of 
a  series  of  crimes  which  struck  at  the  very  foundations  of 
the  Kepublic,  is  a  question  which  still  puzzles  many  of  all 
parties  who  have  no  charity  for  the  crimes  themselves.  I 
have  already  referred  to  the  terrors  and  desperation  with 
which  the  prospect  of  Tilden's  election  inspired  the  great 
army  of  office-holders  at  the  close  of  Grant's  administration. 
That  army,  numerous  and  formidable  as  it  was,  was  com 
paratively  limited.  There  was  a  much  larger  and  justly 
influential  class  who  were  apprehensive  that  the  return  of 
the  Democratic  party  to  power  threatened  a  reactionary 

1  The  Democratic  minority  of  the  Electoral  Commission  directed  the 
Hon.  Josiah  Gardner  Abbott,  one  of  their  colleagues  from  Massachusetts,  to 
prepare  an  address  to  the  American  people,  protesting  against  the  decisions 
of  the  majority,  in  which  he  was  to  set  forth  the  reasons  for  their  action 
which,  under  the  laws  establishing  the  commission,  they  had  no  opportunity 
of  reporting  to  Congress.  This  address  is  a  vigorous  and  compact  state 
ment  of  the  wrongs  Avhich  they  and  the  country  had  sustained  at  the  hands 
of  the  majority,  but,  for  reasons  which  have  not  transpired,  was  never  pro 
mulgated.  It  is  understood,  however,  that  the  result  would  not  have  been 
changed  by  protesting,  and  the  minority  did  not  wish  to  further  weaken  the 
respect  for  the  government  from  which  there  was  no  refuge  but  in  revolu 
tion.  For  a  copy  of  this  protest,  which  is  an  essential  part  of  the  history 
of  the  Electoral  Commission,  see  Appendix  A. 


106  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

policy  at  Washington,  to  the  undoing  of  some  or  all  the 
important  results  of  the  war.  These  apprehensions  were 
inflamed  by  the  party  press  until  they  were  confined  to  no 
class,  but  more  or  less  pervaded  all  the  Northern  States. 
The  electoral  tribunal,  consisting  mainly  of  men  appointed 
to  their  positions  by  Republican  Presidents  or  elected  from 
strong  Republican  States,  felt  the  pressure  of  this  feeling, 
and  from  motives  compounded  in  more  or  less  varying  pro 
portions  of  dread  of  the  Democrats,  personal  ambition,  zeal 
for  their  party,  and  respect  for  their  constituents,  reached 
the  conclusion  that  the  exclusion  of  Tilden  from  the  White 
House  was  an  end  which  justified  whatever  means  were 
necessary  to  accomplish  it.  They  regarded  it  like  the 
emancipation  of  the  slaves  as  a  war  measure.  In  that  way 
they  quieted  their  consciences  for  a  time  at  least,  and  found 
a  peace  which  passeth  all  understanding,  by  virtue  of  a 
course  of  reasoning  which  they  might  be  suspected  of  hav 
ing  borrowed  from  one  of  Mr.  Dickens'  amiable  heroes  : 

'  I  am  glad  to  see  you  have  so  high  a  sense  of  your 
duties  as  a  son,  Sam/  said  Mr.  Pickwick.  — f  I  always  had, 
sir,'  replied  Mr.  Weller.  — '  That's  a  very  gratifying  reflec 
tion,  Sam,'  said  Mr.  Pickwick  approvingly.  — r  Worry,  sir,' 
replied  Mr.  Weller.  ?  If  ever  I  wanted  anything  o'  my 
father,  I  always  asked  for  it  in  a  werry  'spectful  and 
obligin'  manner.  If  he  didn't  give  it  me,  I  took:  it  for  fear 
I  should  be  led  to  do  anythin'  wrong  through  not  havin'  it. 
I  saved  him  a  world  o'  trouble  in  that  vay,  sir.' 

" '  That's  not  precisely  what  I  meant,  Sam,'  said  Mr. 
Pickwick,  shaking  his  head  with  a  slight  smile.  '  All  good 
feelin',  sir,  the  werry  best  intentions,  as  the  gen'lm'n  said 
ven  he  run  away  from  his  wife  'cos  she  seemed  unhappy 
with  him,'  replied  Mr.  Weller." 

The  President  and  Yice-President  declared  by  the  Elec 
toral  Commission  to  have  been  the  choice  of  the  electors 
were  inaugurated  on  Sunday,  the  4th  of  March.  On  the 
following  day  the  Hon.  Charles  Francis  Adams  addressed 
to  Mr.  Tilden  a  letter  which,  though  brief,  produced  a  na 
tional  sensation.  It  ran  as  follows  : 


THE    STAMP    OF   FRANCE  107 

"BOSTON,  March  5,  1877. 
"Hox.  S.  J.  TILDEN,  New  York: 

"  MY  DEAR  SIR  :  On  this  day,  when  you  ought  to  have 
been  the  President  of  these  United  States,  I  seize  the  oppor 
tunity  to  bear  my  testimony  to  the  calm  and  dignified  man 
ner  in  which  you  have  passed  through  this  great  trial. 

"  It  is  many  years  since  I  ceased  to  be  a  party  man. 
Hence  I  have  endeavored  to  judge  of  public  affairs  and  men 
rather  by  their  merits  than  by  the  names  they  take.  It  is  a 
source  of  gratification  to  me  to  think  that  I  made  the  right 
choice  in  the  late  election.  I  could  never  have  been  recon 
ciled  to  the  elevation,  by  the  smallest  aid  of  mine,  of  a 
person,  however  respectable  in  private  life,  who  must  for 
ever  carry  upon  his  brow  the  stamp  of  fraud,  first  tri 
umphant  in  American  history.  No  subsequent  action, 
however  meritorious,  can  wash  away  the  letters  of  that 
record. 

"  Very  respectfully  yours, 

"CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS." 

The  formal  and  public  charge  from  the  son  of  one  Presi 
dent,  the  grandson  of  another  President,  himself  in  one 
important  national  crisis  a  candidate  for  the  vice-presi 
dency,  and  in  another  and  yet  graver  national  crisis  our 
minister  to  England,  that  the  man  who  only  the  day  previ 
ous  had  been  formally  clothed  with  the  chief  magistracy  of 
the  nation  "  must  forever  carry  upon  his  brow  the  stamp  of 
fraud,"  conveyed  with  it  throughout  the  land  something 
of  the  shock  of  the  fire-bell  rung  in  the  night.  Had  such 
a  letter  from  such  a  source  appeared  the  day  following  the 
inauguration  of  any  previous  President  of  the  United 
States,  its  author  could  hardly  have  expected  immunity 
from  personal  outrage.  The  truth  of  the  charge,  however, 
was  so  indisputable,  that,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  no  one 
of  Mr.  Hayes'  friends  or  partisans  ever  attempted  to  deal 
with  its  author,  as  would  have  been  natural  had  it  been 
questionable. 

Among  Mr.  Tilden's  papers  the  following  fragment  of 
what  purports  to  have  been  intended  as  a  reply  to  Mr. 


108  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDE N 

Adams'  letter  has  been  found.  Though  only  a  fragment 
and  never  communicated  to  Mr.  Adams,  it  is  interesting 
as  a  revelation  of  the  state  of  feeling  which  the  letter 
had  awakened,  and  of  Mr.  Tilden's  deliberate  view  of  the 
frauds  by  which  the  rights  of  the  nation  had  been  violated. 

"NEW  YORK,  April         ,   1877. 

"  MY  DEAR  SIR  :  The  approving  judgment  expressed  in 
your  letter  of  March  5th  is  esteemed  by  me  as  the  best  of 
testimonies.  The  circumstances  you  mention,  which  char 
acterize  it  as  a  mere  judgment,  free  from  the  bias  of  par 
tisanship,  passion,  or  interest,  enhance  its  value.  So  do 
also,  I  may  be  allowed  to  add,  the  large  experience,  long 
familiarity  with  and  habitual  thoughtfulness  concerning 
public  affairs,  and  the  high  standards  of  right  and  duty, 
in  the  lights  of  which  that  conclusion  has  been  deduced. 

''  I  should  have  had  little  excuse  for  any  want  of  the 
qualities  of  personal  demeanor  which  you  commend ;  for 
I  have  not  been  conscious,  in  the  vicissitudes  of  what  you 
speak  of  as  c  the  great  trial,'  of  any  feeling  of  desire  or 
regret,  separate  from  the  public  cause  I  have  represented. 

"  That  cause  I  do  regard  as  the  greatest  that  can  interest 
the  attention  of  this  generation  of  Americans. 

"  In  advocating  the  creation  of  the  Union,  our  wise  an 
cestors  often  predicted  that  intestine  wars  —  if  unhappily 
we  should  fall  into  them  —  would  end  in  a  subversion  of 
constitutional  government  and  civil  liberty.  Those  who 
thought,  as  you  and  I  did,  that  the  federal  government 
should  be  maintained  and  carried  through  the  armed  con 
flicts  in  which  it  had  become  inevitably  involved,  did  not 
shut  our  eyes  to  the  peril  that  in  the  process  our  institu 
tions,  in  their  spirit  and  practical  working,  might  be 
greatly  and  injuriously  affected.  Changes  in  the  ideal 
standards  that  govern  men  administering  the  government 
and  limit  what  they  dare  or  do,  and  limit  also  what  the 
people  will  tolerate ;  changes  in  the  unwritten  laws  es 
tablished  by  tradition  and  habit,  often  more  controlling 
than  constitutions  and  statutes ;  changes  in  the  enormous 
recent  growth  of  perverting,  abusive,  and  corrupting  influ 
ences,  —  these  were  evil  tendencies,  full  of  danger  to  every 
thing  really  valuable  in  our  political  system. 

"  To  curb  and  correct  these  evil  tendencies ;   to  restore 


TILDEN'S   REPLY    TO    ADAMS  109 

to  the  barren  forms  of  government  a  spirit  and  substance 
and  practice  in  accord  with  the  best  ideals  and  original 
models  which  had  been  formed  under  the  fortunate  circum 
stances  of  our  early  history ;  to  remove  the  fungus  over 
growths  engendered  by  civil  war,  while  preserving  what 
ever  of  good  it  had  saved  or  gained,  —  this  was  the  first 
of  objects.  A  general  reform  of  administration,  reducing 
burdens  upon  the  people  and  facilitating  a  revival  of 
industries,  would  attend  as  incidents.  A  complete  and 
cordial  reconciliation  between  estranged  populations  and 
classes,  the  removal  of  unfounded  distrust  and  fear  of  each 
other,  the  inspiration  of  mutual  confidence,  was  a  neces 
sary  condition. 

"  Such  was  the  work  most  needful  to  our  country  in  its 
present  condition,  the  most  beneficent  that  could  engage 
the  efforts  of  patriotism  or  humanity,  —  such  was  that  work 
as  it  appeared  previous  to  the  late  election.  The  events 
which  have  happened  since  and  to  which  you  allude  have 
added  a  new  element  to  that  work.  Or,  perhaps,  they 
have  disclosed  how  far  we  have  drifted  away  in  practice 
from  the  theory  of  our  government,  and  shown  that  we 
have  a  more  difficult  task  to  get  back  than  had  been 
apparent.  The  immense  power  which  the  corrupt  influence 
of  the  government  has  to  perpetuate  itself  was  never  so 
developed  as  in  the  late  canvass.  I  was  accustomed  to  say 
that  it  was  necessary  to  start  in  August  with  a  public 
opinion  which  would  naturally  give  you  two-thirds  of  the 
votes  in  order  to  receive  a  majority  in  November.  The 
civil  service  was  never  so  audaciously  and  so  unscrupulously 
used  for  electioneering  purposes  as  in  the  late  canvass. 
The  whole  body  of  100,000  office-holders  were  made  to  feel 
their  accountability  for  partisan  service,  and  a  large  part 
of  them  brought  into  great  activity.  The  money  contri 
butions  systematically  exacted,  and  the  sums  drawn  from 
contractors,  jobbers,  and  persons  having  business  relations 
with  the  general  government,  aggregated  a  large  fund, 
while  the  machine  was  openly  worked  by  a  cabinet  minister 
acting  as  the  head  of  a  partisan  committee. 

"  The  army,  likewise,  was  used  as  an  electioneering  in 
strument.  In  Louisiana,  Florida,  and  South  Carolina  the 
carpet-bag  governments  —  their  robberies,  oppressions,  and 
crimes  — had  so  repelled  public  opinion,  had  so  antagonized 
all  taxpayers,  all  men  of  business,  property,  social  weight, 


110  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

and  personal  influence,  that  the  element  that  remained  was 
incapable  of  any  cohesion,  or  of  any  action  on  its  own 
motion.  The  real  object  of  the  military  display  was  not 
to  keep  up  a  police,  which  was  unnecessary  and  was  no  part 
of  the  function  of  the  federal  army,  but  was  to  act  on  the 
imaginations  of  the  ignorant,  disintegrated  social  atoms 
and  enable  the  agents  of  the  administration  to  organize 
and  lead  them.  It  was  as  true  then  as  it  is  confessed  now 
that  without  its  aid  added  to  the  other  support  of  the  gov 
ernment,  no  Republican  party  could  exist  in  those  States. 

"  But  all  these  odds  were  overcome  by  the  mere  moral 
force  of  public  opinion  demanding  better  government ;  and 
a  popular  majority  of  260,000  votes  and  an  electoral  ma 
jority  of  twenty-three  votes  resulted. 

"This  was  notwithstanding  that  California  was  carried 
by  fraud  now  ascertained,  and  several  of  the  new  States 
by  corrupt  means. 

"  Then  came  the  after  frauds :  the  change  of  the  actual 
result  declared  at  the  polls,  by  governmental  influence 
falsifying  the  returns  of  two  States  and  falsifying  the 
count  of  the  electoral  votes."  C cetera  desunt. 


I  was  at  Mr.  Tilden's  house  when  the  news  of  his  exclu 
sion  from  the  presidency  was  announced  to  him,  and  also 
on  the  4th  of  March,  when  Mr.  Hayes  was  inaugurated. 
I  venture  to  quote  the  following  contemporaneous  entry 
from  my  diary,  relating  to  his  bearing  on  that  occasion  : 

"  It  was  impossible  to  remark  any  change  in  his  manner 
except,  perhaps,  that  he  was  less  absorbed  than  usual  and 
more  interested  in  current  affairs.  I  spent  a  week  at  this 
time  a  guest  in  his  house,  and  I  could  not  see  that  he  was 
as  much  disappointed  as  most  of  the  people  about  him. 
He  has  not  been  so  cheerful  at  any  time  in  the  last  three 
years  as  since  the  4th  inst.  My  explanation  of  this  is  sat 
isfactory  to  me.  His  notion  of  being  President  meant  a 
life  of  care,  responsibility,  and  effort  such  as  none  of  his 
predecessors  ever  encountered.  He  never  contemplated 
the  presidency  except  as  a  fearful  struggle.  When  his 
election  was  out  of  the  question  he  was  naturally  more 
sensible  of  his  escape  from  the  giants  which  he  had  seen  in 


WHY  DID  NOT  TILDEN  ASSUME  THE  PRESIDENCY?    Ill 

his  path  than  of  the  honors  which  might  have  been  his,  but 
were  to  be  worn  by  another.  This  sense  of  relief  and  the 
opportunity  it  oifers  of  looking  after  his  health,  which  is 
daily  improving  in  consequence,  have  rather  made  him 
happier  than  otherwise.  When  the  giants  shall  have  en 
tirely  disappeared,  and  his  freedom  from  care  and  anxiety 
become  familiar  to  him,  it  is  probable  that  he  will  feel 
more  keenly  the  loss  he  has  sustained.  He  regards  Thur- 
man  and  Bayard  as  chiefly  responsible  for  his  miscarriage." 

There  have  been  occasional  criticisms  of  Mr.  Tilden,  not 
only  by  those  who  wished  an  excuse  for  their  own  dis 
loyalty  to  their  party  or  for  their  personal  pusillanimity, 
but  also  by  some  of  his  faithful  friends,  that  he  did  not 
take  the  oath  of  office  and  go  on  to  Washington  and  claim 

~  O 

the  presidency  at  all  hazard  and  regardless  of  the  title  con 
ferred  by  congressional  authority  upon  another.  I  believe 
Mr.  Charles  O'Conor  was  one  of  these  friends,  and  I  also 
remember  how  signally  I  failed  in  an  effort  in  1877  to 
make  Victor  Hugo  comprehend  Mr.  Tilden's  submission 
to  the  decision  of  the  electoral  tribunal.  He  shook  his 
head  at  the  close  of  my  exposition,  as  if  to  say,  "That  is 
not  the  way  we  do  things  here  in  France,"  which  was  very 
true.  But  Charles  O'Conor,  with  all  his  prodigious  abilities 
as  a  jurist,  was  never  successful  in  forming  or  leading  a 
political  party  that  embraced  more  than  one  person ;  and 
Victor  Hugo  resigned  his  seat  in  the  only  deliberative 
political  assembly  to  which  he  was  ever  chosen  by  his 
countrymen,  from  sheer  reluctance  to  prolong  the  exhibition 
to  the  world  of  his  utter  impotence  and  insignificance  in  a 
council  of  statesmen.  Mr.  Tilden  had  frequent  applica 
tions  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  mainly  from  friends,  for 
information  about  his  plans ;  what  he  had  done,  what  he 
proposed  to  do,  and  what  he  expected  his  friends  to  do 
towards  reclaiming  the  office  which  had  been  wrongfully 
wrested  from  him.  These  letters  were,  I  believe,  uniformly 
referred  to  me,  and  I  answered  such  as  seemed  entitled  to 


112  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL  J.    TILDEN 

an  answer.  A  few  days  before  the  fourth  of  March,  when 
the  new  President  was  to  be  inaugurated,  a  communication 
appeared  in  one  of  the  morning  papers,  —  "  The  World,"  I 
believe,  —  affirming,  upon  the  alleged  authority  of  General 
Woodford,  the  United  States  District  Attorney  for  the 
Southern  District  of  New  York,  that  Mr.  Tilden  was  about 
to  take  the  oath  of  office  as  President  in  New  York,  and 
then  to  proclaim  himself  President  of  the  United  States. 
A  representative  of  one  of  the  daily  journals  called  upon 
me  to  ascertain  the  truth  of  that  statement.  As  the  criti 
cisms  of  Mr.  Tilden's  behavior,  after  the  members  of  his 
own  party  had,  with  comparative  unanimity  and  against 
his  judgment,  consented  to  refer  the  counting  of  the 
electoral  vote  to  a  special  commission,  still  occasionally 
reappear  where  they  can  be  made  to  palliate  or  excuse 
other  people's  shortcomings,  I  will  here  cite  flie  substance 
of  my  reply  to  the  inquiries  of  the  reporter,  in  which 
is  embraced  all,  I  think,  that  needs  further  to  be  said  on 
that  subject.  After  disposing  of  a  few  topics  no  longer 
pertinent,  I  said : 

"  There  were  two  contingencies  in  which  it  would  have 
been  lawful  and  obligatory  for  Mr.  Tilden  to  have  taken 
the  official  oath  as  President. 

"  First,  If  Congress  had  performed  its  constitutional  duty 
of  counting  the  electoral  votes  and  had  declared  that  Mr. 
Tilden  was  chosen  by  the  electoral  colleges. 

"  The  two  Houses  of  Congress  have  all  the  powers  for 
verifying  the  electoral  votes  which  the  Constitution  or  the 
laws  confer  or  allow.  Nobody  else  in  the  federal  gov 
ernment  has  any  such  powers.  This  exclusive  jurisdiction 
of  the  two  Houses  has  been  exercised  without  interruption 
from  the  beginning  of  the  government.  It  is  known  to  all 
those  wrho  came  in  contact  with  Mr.  Tilden  at  this  period 
that  he  concurred  in  this  view  of  the  powers  and  duties  of 
the  two  Houses  of  Congress  exclusively  to  count  the  elec 
toral  vote.  He  was  perfectly  free  and  unreserved  in  the 
expression  of  his  opinions  on  this  subject. 

"  This  contingency,  however,  never  presented  itself.  Con 
gress,  before  the  time  fixed  by  the  law  for  counting  the 


WHY  DID  NOT  TILDEN  ASSUME  THE  PRESIDENCY?  113 

electoral  votes,  passed  the  electoral  bill,  wherein  it  substan 
tially  abdicated  its  powers  and  enacted  that  the  Electoral 
Commission  should,  in  the  first  instance,  make  a  count,  and 
that  its  count  should  stand  unless  overruled  by  the  concurrent 
action  of  the  two  Houses.  The  electoral  tribunal  counted 
Mr.  Tilden  out,  and  counted  in  a  man  who  was  not  elected. 
Congress  did  not  overrule  their  count ;  consequently  the 
false  count  stood  as  law  under  the  act  of  Congress. 

"/Secondly,  The  other  contingency,  in  which  it  would 
have  been  lawful  and  obligatory  on  Mr.  Tilden  to  have 
taken  the  oath  of  office,  was  that  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  on  the  failure  of  a  choice  of  President  by  the  electoral 
colleges  had  itself  proceeded  to  make  the  election,  voting 
by  States  in  the  manner  prescribed  by  the  Constitution. 

"This  contingency,  like  the  first  one,  never  occurred. 

"  The  House  of  Representatives  is  required,  by  the  express 
language  of  the  Constitution,  to  elect  the  President  when 
neither  of  the  candidates  can  command  a  majority  of  the 
electoral  votes. 

"The  right  of  the  two  Houses  to  count  the  electoral  votes 
and  to  declare  that  any  person  has  a  majority  is  a  matter 
of  implication,  precedent,  and  practice.  But  the  right  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  to  supply  the  failure  of  a 
choice  is  a  positive  constitutional  command.  It  is  not  only 
a  right,  but  a  duty.  The  provision  is  mandatory.  The 
House  is  a  witness  at  the  opening  of  the  certificates  ;  it  is 
an  actor  in  counting  the  votes  by  its  own  tellers  and  in  its 
own  presence. 

"Having  such  and  the  best  means  of  knowing  whether  a 
choice  has  been  made  by  the  electoral  colleges,  it  is  also 
expressly  vested  with  a  power  and  duty  to  act  exclusively 
and  conclusively  in  the  event  that  no  person  proves  to 
have  been  chosen  by  a  majority  of  the  votes  of  those 
colleges.  The  House  acquires  jurisdiction  by  that  fact. 
The  assent  of  the  Senate  to  the  existence  of  that  fact  is  no 
where  prescribed  or  required.  No  judgment,  certification, 
or  act  of  any  official  body  is  interposed  as  a  condition  to 
the  assuming  of  jurisdiction  by  the  House.  When  the 
House  has  once  acted  in  such  a  case,  no  review  of  its  action 
nor  any  appeal  from  its  decision  is  provided  for  in  the  Con 
stitution.  It  is  difficult  to  see  why  the  House  in  such  a 
case,  like  all  tribunals  of  original  jurisdiction  and  subject 
to  no  appeal,  did  not  insist  upon  its  rights  as  the  exclusive 

VOL.  II.  -  8 


114  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

judge  of  the  fact  and  the  law  from  which  it  acquired  juris 
diction.  It  was,  I  am  told,  a  fear  that  the  Senate  might  lead 
a  resistance  to  the  rightful  judgment  of  the  House,  and  that 
General  Grant  would  sustain  such  a  revolutionary  policy 
with  the  army  and  navy  and  the  militia  of  the  great  States 
in  which  the  Republicans  had  possession  of  the  governments, 
that  deterred  the  House  of  Representatives  from  the  assertion 
of  its  rights  and  induced  it  to  abdicate  in  favor  of  the  Elec 
toral  Commission. 

"But  without  speculating  upon  causes  or  motives,  one 
thing  is  certain :  the  House  of  Representatives  did  not 
elect  Mr.  Tilden  in  the  manner  prescribed  by  the  Constitu 
tion.  On  the  other  hand,  it  did  concur  with  the  Senate  in 
anticipating  and  preventing  the  contingency  in  which  it 
might  have  been  compelled  to  act,  thus  providing  an  ex 
pedient  which  disarmed  it.  It  adopted  the  electoral  law 
and  went  through  all  the  forms  required  for  the  execution 
of  the  electoral  scheme.  True,  it  afterwards  passed  a  de 
claratory  resolution  condemning  the  action  of  that  tribunal 
and  asserting  that  Mr.  Tilden  had  been  duly  elected ;  but 
the  Constitution  had  not  provided  that  a  man  should  or 
could  take  office  as  President  on  a  declaratory  resolution 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  merely.  If  that  resolution 
could  have  had  full  eifect  to  abrogate  the  electoral  law 
which  the  House  had  assisted  to  enact,  it  would  have 
created  no  warrant  of  authority  to  Mr.  Tilden  to  take  the 
oath  of  office.  A  vote  by  States  that  he  should  be  the  next 
President  of  the  United  States  was  still  necessary  to  give 
Mr.  Tilden  any  more  title  to  the  succession  than  General 
Grant,  and  that  vote  the  House  of  Representatives  never 
gave  him. 

"I  might  have  disposed  of  your  question  more  briefly  by 
simply  saying  that  no  contingency  provided  by  the  Consti 
tution  ever  existed  in  which  Mr.  Tilden  could  lawfully  or 
properly  take  the  oath  of  office  as  President.  I  have  dwelt 
upon  the  matter  at  some  length  because  of  its  future 
as  well  as  past  importance.  The  idea  that  Mr.  Tilden 
ever  thought  of  taking  the  oath  of  office  illegally  is  in  my 
judgment  quite  as  preposterous  as  is  the  other  idea  that  he 
would  have  omitted  to  take  it  if  any  contingency  had 
arisen  in  which  it  was  his  right  or  duty  to  take  it,  or  that 
any  menace  would  have  had  the  slightest  influence  in  pre 
venting  his  performing  his  whole  obligation  to  the  people. 


JAMES    RUSSELL    LOWELL  115 

I  will  venture  to  say  that  if  it  had  been  his  right  and 
duty  to  take  the  oath  he  would  not  have  done  so  at  the  City 
Hall  in  New  York,  surrounded  by  the  forces  which,  accord 
ing  to  Mr.  Mines,  General  "Woodford  pictured  to  his  imagi 
nation,  but  at  the  federal  capitol,  even  though  he  had 
known  that  he  would  be  kidnapped  or  subjected  to  a  drum 
head  court-martial  five  minutes  afterwards.  It  is  doubtless 
true  that  revolutionary  ideas  were  entertained  by  the 
hierarchy  of  office-holders  in  possession  of  the  government. 
General  Grant  did  utter  menaces  in  published  interviews 
and  did  make  a  display  of  military  force  in  Washington 
to  overawe  Congress.  I  presume  this  was  a  part  of  the 
system  of  intimidation  for  which  he  allowed  himself  to  be 
used  by  the  office-holders,  and  which  was  intended  to  act 
upon  public  opinion  through  the  fear  of  disturbance,  as 
well  as  upon  Congress.  But  it  is  safe  to  say  that  whatever 
the  effects  they  produced,  they  did  not  prevent  Mr.  Tilden 
from  taking  the  oath  of  office.  The  fear  that  he  would 
do  so,  wrhich  induced  the  Republicans  to  swear  their 
candidate  into  office  privately  on  the  Saturday  previous  to 
the  commencement  of  his  term  of  office,  besides  repeating 
the  ceremony  at  the  inauguration,  was  born  of  that  con 
sciousness  which  causes  the  wicked  to  flee  when  no  man 
pursueth.  I  was  aware  that  about  that  time  Mr.  Tilden's 
house  was  besieged  by  emissaries  of  the  press  and  the 
telegraph  to  know  if  the  rumors  to  that  effect  which  pre 
vailed  in  Washington  were  true.  This  was  a  species  of 
curiosity  which  I  believe  Mr.  Tilden  did  not  consider  it  any 
part  of  his  duty  to  relieve." 

The  following  lines  from  the  austere  muse  of  J.  Russell 
Lowell  in  a  satire  entitled  "  Tenipora  Mutantur "  were 
widely  quoted  in  the  columns  of  the  Massachusetts  press 
during  the  campaign  of  1876  : 

**  The  ten  commandments  had  a  meaning  then, 
Felt  in  their  bones  by  least  considerate  men, 
Because  behind  them  public  conscience  stood, 
And  without  wincing  made  their  mandates  good. 
But  now  that  statesmanship  is  just  a  way 
To  dodge  the  primal  curse,  and  make  it  pay; 


116  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

Since  office  means  a  kind  of  patent  drill 

To  force  an  entrance  to  the  nation's  till ; 

And  peculation  something  rather  less 

Risky  than  if  you  spelt  it  with  an  S  ; 

Now  that  to  steal  by  law  is  grown  an  art, 

Whom  rogues  our  sires,  their  milder  sons  call  '  smart.' 


The  public  servant  who  has  stolen  or  lied, 
If  called  on  may  resign  with  honest  pride. 
As  unjust  favor  put  him  in,  why  doubt 
Disfavor  as  unjust  has  put  him  out  ? 
Even  if  indicted,  what  is  that  but  fudge, 
To  him  who  counted-in  the  election  judge?  l 
Whitewashed,  he  quits  the  politician's  strife, 
At  ease  in  mind,  with  pockets  filled  for  life." 


Mr.  Lowell  was  one  of  the  Republican  presidential  elec 
tors  of  Massachusetts,  and  from  the  lofty  moral  standard 
by  which  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  judging  public  men, 
the  suspicion  obtained  currency  among  his  friends  in  the 
press  that  he  would  refuse  to  cast  his  vote  for  Hayes,2 
which  would  have  resulted  in  electing  Tilden. 

The  frauds  disclosed  after  the  election,  by  which  a 
majority  of  the  electors  was  secured  for  Hayes,  did  not, 
however,  prevent  Mr.  Lowell's  acceptance  of  the  mission 

1  u  President  "  would  not  rhyme  with  u  fudge." 

2  In  a  letter  to  Leslie  Stephen,  written  December  4,  and  nearly  a  month 
after  the  presidential  election,  Mr.  Lowell  thus  excuses  himself  for  casting 
his  electoral  vote  for  Hayes. 

"  There  was  a  rumor,  it  seems,  that  I  was  going  to  vote  for  Tilden.  But 
in  my  own  judgment  I  have  no  choice,  and  am  bound  in  honor  to  vote  for 
Hayes,  as  the  people  who  chose  me  expected  me  to  do.  They  did  not 
choose  me  because  they  had  confidence  in  my  judgment,  but  because  they 
thought  they  knew  what  that  judgment  would  be.  If  I  had  told  them  that 
I  should  vote  for  Tilden  they  would  never  have  nominated  me.  It  is  a 
plain  question  of  trust.  The  provoking  part  of  it  is  that  I  tried  to  escape 
nomination  all  I  could,  and  only  did  not  decline  because  I  thought  it  would 
be  making  too  much  fuss  over  a  trifle." — u  Letters  of  James  Russell 
Lowell,"  Vol.  II.  p.  185. 


A    LANDMARK    OF   HI STORY  117 

to  Spain  at  the  hand  of  President  Hayes ;  to  prove,  per 
haps,  that  the  allegation  of  his  muse, 

"  That  statesmanship  is  just  a  way 
To  dodge  the  primal  curse,  and  make  it  pay," 

has  its  honorable  exceptions. 

In  further  justice  to  Mr.  Lowell  it  deserves  to  he 
recorded  that  he  had  a  very  respectable  precedent  for 
lending  his  name  and  reputation  to  bolster  the  administra 
tion  of  the  only  spurious  President  in  our  annals. 

In  an  old  life  of  Charles  James  Fox  I  have  read  the 
following  written  entry : 

"  1781,  June  20.  Sold  by  auction,  the  library  of  Charles 
James  Fox,  which  had  been  taken  in  execution.  Amongst 
the  books  was  Mr.  Gibbon's  first  volume  of  Roman  history, 
which  appeared,  by  the  title-page,  to  have  been  given  by 
the  author  to  Mr.  Fox,  who  had  written  in  it  the  following 
anecdote : 

'  The  author  (Gibbon),  at  Brooke's,  said  there  was  no 
salvation  for  this  country  till  six  heads  of  the  principal 
persons  in  the  administration  were  laid  on  the  table. 
Eleven  days  after,  this  gentleman  accepted  the  place  of 
Lord  of  Trade  under  those  very  ministers,  and  has  acted 
with  them  ever  since.' ' 

If  fame  for  its  own  sake,  if  to  live  long  in  the  memory 
of  man,  be  an  end  in  itself  worth  toiling  for,  Tilden  was  to 
be  congratulated  upon  the  decision  of  the  Electoral  Commis 
sion,  for  it  was  the  means  of  conferring  upon  him  an  historic 
prominence  which  the  most  successful  administration  of  the 
presidential  office  could  not  have  assured  him.  The  poet 
Martial  tells  us  that  the  name  of  Mucius  Scaevola,  who 
thrust  his  right  arm  in  the  fire  to  punish  it  for  having  taken 
the  life  of  another  by  mistake  for  that  of  the  royal  invader 
of  his  country,  would  have  found  its  way  to  the  "  wallet  in 
which  Time  carries,  on  his  back,  alms  for  oblivion,"  had 
the  avenging  dagger  reached  the  heart  of  King  Porsenna, 
for  whom  it  was  intended. 


118  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"  Major  cleceptce  fama  est  et  gloria  dextrae 
Si  non  errasset,  fecerat  ilia  minus."  1 

So  the  action  of  the  Electoral  Commission  has  conferred 
upon  Mr.  Tilden  the  unique  distinction  of  being  the  first  — 
let  us  hope  the  last  —  President-elect  of  the  United  States 
feloniously  excluded  from  the  chief  magistracy ;  a  dis 
tinction  which,  like  the  banishment  of  Aristides,  the 
assassinations  of  Caesar,  of  Henry  IY.  of  France,  of  Lin 
coln,  and  of  Carnot,  makes  it  one  of  the  conspicuous  and 
indestructible  landmarks  of  history. 

1  u  Greater  the  glory  and  eke  the  fame 
Of  Scaevola's  hand  deceived, 
Had  it  not  missed  its  patriot  aim, 
The  less  had  it  achieved." 


CHAPTER  IV 

Revisits  Europe  —  Blarney  Castle  —  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral — Tom  Moore's 
birthplace  —  The  cabman's  criticism  —  Lord  Houghton's  story  —  General 
Grant's  reception  in  London  —  Elected  an  honorary  member  of  the  Cob- 
den  Club  —  Visits  the  home  of  his  ancestry  —  Arrives  in  Paris  — 
Attends  the  funeral  of  Thiers  —  Talk  with  Gambetta  —  Louis  Blanc's 
account  of  his  visit  to  Louis  Napoleon  when  a  prisoner  at  Ham,  and  of 
the  loss  and  recovery  of  his  voice  in  London  —  The  story  of  General 
Cavaignac's  brother  and  mother  —  Tilden's  exposure  in  recrossing  the 
channel  —  Returns  to  the  United  States  —  The  "Indian  Corn  Speech." 

DURING  the  spring  of  77  Mr.  Tilden  began  to  feel 
serious  concern  about  his  health.  The  continued  strain  to 
which  his  energies  had  been  subjected  for  five  or  six  years, 
and  especially  during  the  preceding  six  or  eight  months, 
had  told  severely  upon  his  constitution.  Arthritic  symp 
toms  had  begun  to  manifest  themselves  to  such  an  extent 
as  to  deprive  him  almost  entirely  of  the  use  of  his  left 
hand,  and  already  slight  indications  were  exhibited  of  the 
paralysis  agitans,  popularly  known  as  numb  palsy,  which 
was  destined  to  afflict  him  increasingly  for  the  remainder  of 
his  days.  His  medical  advisers  counselled  abstinence  from 
all  serious  cares,  with  rest  and  recreation.  As  it  was 
practically  impossible  to  secure  either  of  these  advantages 
in  his  own  country,  after  much  deliberation  he  decided  to 
try  the  efficacy  of  a  sea- voyage  and  a  few  months'  sojourn 
in  Europe. 

He  made  it  one  of  the  conditions  of  his  going  that  I 
should  accompany  him. 

We  sailed  in  the  steamer  w  Scythia  "  on  Wednesday,  the 
18th  of  July,  landed  at  Queenstown  on  the  morning  of  the 
27th,  and  slept  that  night  at  the  Imperial  Hotel  in  Cork, 
but  not  until  we  had  visited  the  castle  and  groves  of 


120  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

Blarney.  The  following  day  we  left  for  Killarney.  On 
our  way  we  passed  near  to  what,  for  Ireland,  was  some 
thing  of  a  mountain,  the  top  of  which  was  capped  with 
a  cloud  or  mist,  apropos  of  which  a  young  Scotchman, 
riding  in  the  same  car  with  us,  quoted  the  following  lines 
which  he  said  were  current  in  his  country  : 

"  On  Tinto's  top  there  is  a  mist, 
And  in  that  mist  there  is  a  kist, 
And  in  that  kist  there  is  a  drap. 
And  every  one  must  taste  of  that." 

"  Tinto  "  was  the  name  of  a  mountain  ;  "  kist,"  of  a  chest ; 
"  drap,"  a  tear-drop,  a  sorrow. 

The  moral  that  we  extracted  from  these  lines,  in  which 
Tilden  might  have  found  some  consolation,  was  that  there 
is  no  position  in  this  world  so  exalted  as  to  be  exempt 
from  tribulation  and  sorrow,  and  the  higher  the  elevation 
the  greater  was  apt  to  be  the  tribulation. 

We  reached  Killarney  about  noon.  After  lunch  we 
started  for  Dunlo  gap  and  the  lakes.  As  we  approached 
the  gap  we  were  obliged  to  do  homage  to  a  saucy  creature 
who  claimed  to  be  a  granddaughter  of  the  famous  Kate 
Kearney,  whose  charms  were  sung  so  sweetly  by  Tom 
Moore.  Whatever  had  been  the  charms  of  the  original 
Kate,  it  was  very  clear  that  none  of  them  had  descended  to 
the  granddaughter. 

Our  carriage  was  equipped  with  a  guide,  whom  they  called 
a  "bugler."  Soon  after  entering  the  pass  he  got  down  and 
played  two  or  three  airs  to  awaken  the  echoes  in  which 
Moore  found  the  presage  in  "  The  answering  future  "  of  his 
own  enduring  fame. 

"  'Twas  one  of  those  dreams  that  by  music  are  brought, 
Like  a  bright  summer  haze,  o'er  the  poet's  warm  thought. 


TILDEN   IN   IRELAND  121 

"  He  listened  —  while  high  o'er  the  eagle's  rude  nest 
The  lingering  sounds  on  their  way  loved  to  rest ; 
And  the  echoes  sung  back  from  their  full  mountain  quire, 
As  if  loath  to  let  song  so  enchanting  expire. 

"  It  seemed  as  if  every  sweet  note  that  died  here 
Was  again  brought  to  light  in  some  airier  sphere, 
Some  heav'n  in  those  hills,  where  the  soul  of  the  strain 
That  had  ceased  upon  earth  was  awaking  again ! 

"  Oh,  forgive,  if,  while  listening  to  music  whose  breath 
Seem'd  to  circle  his  name  with  a  charm  against  death 
He  should  feel  a  proud  spirit  within  him  proclaim, 
4  Even  so  shalt  thou  live  in  the  echoes  of  fame. 

"  *  Even  so,  tho'  thy  mem'ry  should  now  die  away, 
'Twill  be  caught  up  again  in  some  happier  day, 
And  the  hearts  and  the  voices  of  Erin  prolong, 
Through  the  answering  future,  thy  name  and  thy  song.1 " 

It  was  while  passing  through  the  pass  of  Dunlo  that  our 
attention  was  directed  to  a  lake  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
yards  long,  into  which,  we  were  assured  by  our  bugler  (as 
I  suppose  thousands  had  been  assured  before),  St.  Patrick 
had  drowned  all  the  snakes  in  Ireland,  and  did  his  work  so 
thoroughly,  that  "  divil  a  snake  had  been  seen  in  the  coun 
try  since." 

We  were  left  to  infer  that  the  water-snake  had  not  been 
evolved  in  St.  Patrick's  time,  for  there  is  no  tradition,  I 
believe,  of  a  water-snake  being  drowned. 

We  passed  two  other  points  which  Moore's  verse  has 
made  familiar  and  famous.  One  was  "  The  meeting  of  the 
waters,"  where  for  a  hundred  feet  or  so  the  water  falls 
from  one  lake  into  another,  through  a  narrow  channel 
beautifully  shaded,  and  deep  enough  to  admit  of  the  pas 
sage  of  a  large  boat.  The  other  was  "  The  fairy  isle  of 
Innisfallen." 

We  arrived  in  Dublin  in  the  afternoon  of  Monday,  the 
30th  of  July. 

On  the  following  morning  we  sallied  forth  at  an  early 


122  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

hour  to  see  what  we  could  of  the  metropolis  of  Ireland  in 
a  single  day,  for  social  engagements,  already  contracted 
by  telegraph,  required  us  to  set  our  faces  towards  London 
the  day  following.  Our  first  visit,  of  course,  was  to  St. 
Patrick's  Cathedral  —  which  proved,  in  some  sense,  a  dis 
appointment.  We  were  expecting  to  see  a  venerable, 
mediaeval  pile,  eloquent  of  age  and  historic  suggestion. 
Instead  of  which  we  found,  it  is  true,  a  fine  structure  ;  but 
to  all  appearance  it  might  have  been  finished  the  day  before 
we  visited  it.  The  stones  were  freshly  cut.  To  our  ex 
pressions  of  surprise  at  its  modern  appearance,  the  verger 
informed  us  that  the  cathedral  had  been  entirely  renovated 
recently  by  Guinness,  the  world-renowned  brewer  of  Dub 
lin,  at  an  expense  to  him,  personally,  of  over  £150,000. 
He  had  left  scarcely  a  trace,  inside  or  out,  to  remind  one 
of  the  church  commenced  A.D.  1190,  in  which  Dr.  Swift 
used  to  preach  to  his  "  dearly  beloved  Roger."  Even  the 
places  in  which  the  mortal  remains  of  the  dean  and  Stella 
reposed,  had  succumbed  to  the  fiend  of  renovation.  The 
verger  pointed  to  the  place  where  he  said  their  remains 
were  laid,  but  it  is  possible  that  to  the  next  visitor  he 
named  some  other  place.  There  was  no  mark  or  sign  to 
limit  his  choice.  A  stone  pavement  covered  the  entire 
floor  of  the  cathedral,  bearing  no  record  whatever  of  any 
thing  that  lay  beneath  it.  When  asked  how  this  came 
about,  the  verger  said,  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders  :  "  Oh, 
great  folks  will  have  their  own  way."  No  marks  were  al 
lowed  anywhere  on  the  floor  to  show  where  people  have 
been  buried. 

Upon  the  walls,  but  so  high  that  the  inscriptions  were 
scarcely  legible,  were  cenotaphs  to  Swift  and  Stella  placed 
side  by  side.  While  the  verger  was  enlarging  to  us  upon 
the  extent  of  the  renovations,  Tilden  remarked  to  me,  "It  is 
the  old  story  of  the  jack-knife  :  it  has  had  two  new  blades 
and  three  new  handles,  but  it  is  the  same  old  jack-knife." 

From  the  cathedral  we  drove  to  No.  12  Angier  street, 


TOM   MOORE'S    BIRTHPLACE  123 

near  by,  the  birthplace  of  Tom  Moore.  It  was  a  plain, 
three-story  brick  building.  As  we  descended  from  our 
carriage  a  young  man,  apparently  about  thirty  years  of  age, 
came  to  the  door  and  said,  with  a  smile,  "I  suppose  you 
would  like  to  look  at  the  chamber  in  which  Tom  Moore 
was  born."  We  gave  him  to  understand  that  such  was  our 
errand.  We  saw  at  once  that  we  were  about  to  enter  a 
drinking  saloon,  or  what  is  more  commonly  and  fitly  de 
nominated  a  gin-mill.  In  the  course  of  our  visit  we  learned 
from  our  cicerone  that  such  was  the  business  which  had 
been  carried  on  there  by  Moore's  father,  and  that  such  was 
the  business  which  had  been  carried  on  there  ever  since. 

The  young  man  conducted  us  through  the  front  room, 
which  was  disorderly  and  dirty,  into  and  through  a  middle 
room,  to  which  there  was  an  entrance  from  a  side  street  or 
alley.  This  room  was  divided  by  partitions  into  stalls  like 
a  stable,  so  that  a  person  could  approach  the  bar,  and  get 
what  he  or  she  could  pay  for,  in  comparative  privacy. 
There  were  two  or  three  haggish-looking  women  availing 
themselves  of  the  privileges  of  these  pens  as  we  passed. 
They  were  covered  with  rags,  filthy,  and  in  the  last  stages 
of  brutal  degradation. 

We  were  then  conducted  upstairs  and  into  the  front 
room  of  the  third  story,  where  we  were  told  the  poet  was 
born,  and  thence  to  the  attic,  where  he  began  his  career  as 
a  writer.  It  was  a  low,  dark  room  about  eleven  by  four 
teen  feet  in  size,  with  one  window.  There  was  no  part  of 
the  house,  save  the  front  rooms  in  the  second  and  third 
stories,  that  was  not  reeking  with  dirt  and  suspicious  odors. 

The  proprietor  was  neatly  enough  dressed,  —  which 
made  the  filth,  confusion,  and  disorder  around  him  seem  to 
us  the  more  surprising.  We  did  not  ask  him  for  an  expla 
nation,  but  I  incline  to  suspect  that  it  was  not  to  be  found 
in  mere  carelessness  or  indifference  to  order  and  neatness. 
Would  not  neatness  and  order  have  affected  his  patrons 
unfavorably,  and  driven  them  to  places  more  in  harmony 


124  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDE  N 

with  their  own  condition?  Outwardly  the  house  looked 
well  and  was  in  good  condition ;  but  inwardly  it  seemed 
to  be  full  of  dead  men's  bones.  We  could  with  difficulty 
realize  that  a  poet  of  Moore's  genius  and  refinement  could 
have  been  reared  in  such  a  hell  as  this.  And  yet,  was 
not  the  poet's  career  a  more  or  less  logical  sequence  of 
his  youthful  environment?  He  was  not  responsible  for 
his  father's-dram  shop,  but  did  he  not  become  the  con- 
cocter  and  dispenser  of  more  subtle  and  more  destructive 
poisons? 

Our  driver  affected  not  to  know  where  the  poet  was  born, 
and,  when  mildly  rebuked  for  his  ignorance,  said  that 
"Irish  people  do  not  care  where  Moore  was  born.  English 
and  Americans  go  to  see  the  house ;  we  Irish  never  take 
the  trouble."  When  asked  for  the  cause  of  this  indiffer 
ence  he  said,  "Moore  never  wrote  anything  for  the  people. 
He  liked  to  live  with  and  to  please  the  great  people  in 
England.  He  did  not,  like  Burns,  write  for  his  own 
country  people." 

Manifestly  the  poet's  popularity  in  England  was  his  real 
offence  in  the  eyes  of  our  Jehu,  who  probably  did  not 
know  how  to  read  at  all ;  and  if  he  did,  the  fact  that  Moore 
was  as  much  the  national  bard  of  Ireland  as  Burns  was  the 
national  bard  of  Scotland,  or  Beranger  of  France,  would 
not  in  the  least  have  extenuated  his  crime  of  trying  to  please 
and  l)e  popular  on  the  other  side  of  the  channel.  Be  this 
as  it  may,  it  was  very  clear  that  here  was  one  at  least  of  the 
voices  of  Erin  not  disposed  to  prolong 

"  Through  the  answering  future  Moore's  name  and  his  song." 

On  the  front  wall  of  the  house,  between  the  first  and 
second  story,  a  piece  of  white  marble  was  let  into  the  wall, 
upon  which  was  this  inscription  : 

"In  this  house,  on  the  28th  of  May, 
1778,  was  born  the  poet 
THOMAS  MOORE." 


LORD   HOUGHTON' $    STORY  125 

Some  two  weeks  after  our  visit  in  Dublin,  Mr.  Tilden 
and  I  were  guests  of  the  late  Lord  Houghton  one  evening 
at  the  Cosmopolitan  Club,  in  London.  While  most  of  the 
guests  were  gone  to  the  refreshment-room,  Houghton  sat 
down  by  my  side  on  a  sofa  and  made  a  few  inquiries  about 
what  we  had  been  doing.  I  spoke  casually  of  my  visit  to 
the  birthplace  of  Tom  Moore  ;  he  interrupted  me,  "  Let  me 
tell  you  something."  He  then  went  on  to  say  that  in  the 
early  part  of  this  century  one  of  the  most  eminent  sur 
geons  in  Dublin  was  sent  for  to  come  in  great  haste  to 
attend  a  young  woman  who  was  supposed  to  be  dying. 
Putting  everything  aside,  he  jumped  into  a  cab  and  hastened 
to  the  place,  of  which  the  address  had  been  given  him. 
Beside  the  young  woman  for  whose  injuries  he  had  been 
called  stood  a  young  man  with  a  face  expressing  the  great 
est  anxiety  and  distress.  He  was  alternately  denouncing 
himself  for  what  had  occurred,  loudly  invoking  the  Divine 
forgiveness,  and  begging  the  doctor  to  spare  no  effort  or 
expense  to  save  the  young  woman's  life.  The  doctor  found, 
upon  examination,  that  though  somewhat  bruised  she  was 
not  dangerously  injured.  After  doing  for  her  what  seemed 
in  his  judgment  to  be  required,  he  turned  to  the  young  man 
to  know  what  had  occurred,  and  why  he  held  himself 
responsible  for  it.  The  young  man  proceeded  at  once  to 
confide  to  him  the  story.  In  brief,  the  young  woman  was 
an  actress,  then  playing  minor  parts  at  one  of  the  Dublin 
theatres ;  he  became  enamored  of  her,  and  in  a  moment 
of  passionate  recklessness  presumed  upon  her  amiability 
to  solicit  favors  which  a  lady  cannot  and  she  would  not 
grant.  He  pressed  his  suit  so  pertinaciously  that  at  last 
she  threatened  that  if  he  did  not  desist  she  would  throw 
herself  out  of  the  window. 

The  very  extravagance  of  her  threat  rather  encouraged 
than  discouraged  her  admirer,  for  it  never  entered  his 
mind  that  she  could  be  so  rash  as  to  execute  it,  and  to 


126  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

threaten  it  implied  to  him  that  she  was  not  more  than  half 
in  earnest  in  her  resistance. 

He  persisted  with  his  importunities.  True  to  her  word, 
she  sprang  through  the  window,  and  was  soon  taken  up 
senseless  from  the  pavement. 

Thus  far  to  the  doctor.  Lord  Houghton  went  on  to  say 
that  the  young  man  was  so  shocked  by  the  immediate 
consequences  of  his  misconduct,  and  so  impressed  by  the 
virtuous  firmness  of  the  young  girl,  that  as  soon  as  she 
was  sufficiently  recovered  to  entertain  such  proposals,  he 
asked  her  hand  in  marriage  and  was  accepted.  They  were 
shortly  after  married,  and  the  young  woman  became  Mrs. 
Tom  Moore. 

I  asked  Lord  Houghton  if  he  considered  that  story  as 
entirely  authentic.  He  said,  "  Certainly,  the  facts  are  well 
known  to  many  people  still  living  in  Dublin." 

We  afterwards  visited  the  whilom  residence  of  Daniel 
O'Connell,  the  birthplace  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  and 
the  old  Parliament  House — the  part  in  which  the  Commons 
sat  being  then  occupied  as  a  banking-house.  The  Lords 
sat  in  a  smaller  room,  the  furniture  of  which  we  found  sub 
stantially  unchanged.  A  remarkably  fine  bust  of  Curran 
in  this  room  specially  engaged  Mr.  Tilden's  attention. 

We  left  Dublin  early  on  the  morning  of  the  1st  of 
August  for  England,  and  after  a  flying  visit  to  Eton  Hall 
and  the  Chester  Cathedral,  pushed  on  to  London,  where 
on  the  3d  we  found  ourselves  comfortably  installed  at  the 
Buckingham  Palace  Hotel.  Here  for  the  succeeding  eight 
or  ten  days  we  were  obliged  to  devote  ourselves  pretty 
constantly  to  social  engagements,  most  of  which  had  been 
contracted  for  us  before  our  arrival.  We,  of  course,  cm- 
braced  the  earliest  convenient  opportunity  of  waiting  upon 
Mr.  Pierrepoint,  then  our  representative  at  the  English 
court.  In  the  course  of  our  visit  he  found  occasion  to  give 
us  at  some  length  the  history  of  the  measures  he  took  to 
secure  for  General  Grant  a  reception  in  England  such  as 


EX-PRESIDENT    GRANT   IN  LONDON  127 

had  never  before  been  aceorded  to  any  American.  He 
said  that  he  remembered  being  in  London  in  1854  or  1855 
when  ex-President  Van  Buren  was  there  and  Mr.  McLane 
was  minister.  Both  were  invited  to  a  dinner  at  Lord  Clar 
endon's,  then  prime-minister.  When  Van  Buren  arrived, 
Clarendon  occupied  himself  with  other  guests,  overlooking 
Van  Buren,  who,  when  dinner  was  announced,  found  him 
self  relegated  to  the  foot  of  the  table.  McLane  complained 
of  this  in  official  quarters  on  the  following  day,  and  the 
reply  was,  "  You  give  your  ex-Presidents  no  official  rank  : 
how  can  we?"  Van  Buren  declined  all  further  invi 
tations. 

Remembering  this  incident,  Pierrepont  said  that  when  he 
received  from  Grant  the  letter  announcing  his  intention  to 
visit  England,  he  promptly  sought  an  interview  with  Lord 
Derby,  then  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  to  ascertain  how 
the  ex-President  would  be  received  by  the  English  author 
ities.  He  received  substantially  the  same  reply  that  was 
given  to  the  expostulation  of  McLane.  Pierrepont  quoted 
the  case  of  the  ex-Emperor  Napoleon  III.,  who  had  then 
recently  come  to  England  without  rank  or  title,  but  had 
been  received  as  a  member  of  a  royal  or  imperial  family. 
The  like  courtesy  was  extended  to  his  son.  Lord  Derby 
said  there  might  be  something  in  that,  and  asked  Pierrepont 
to  put  his  wishes  in  writing,  and  meantime  promised  to  con 
fer  with  some  of  his  colleagues.  Pierrepont  did  as  requested, 
and  in  a  day  or  two  waited  upon  Lord  Derby  with  his  pro 
gramme.  Derby  said  there  would  be  no  difficulty  so  far  as 
the  cabinet  was  concerned,  but  intimated  that  he  might 
have  difficulty  in  persuading  the  ambassadors  to  yield  their 
precedence  to  a  man  without  any  official  character  or  rank. 
Pierrepont  invited  three  or  four  of  the  ambassadors  to  meet 
with  him  to  consider  the  matter.  Count  Munster,  the  Ger 
man  ambassador,  insisted  that  he  had  no  right  or  power, 
whatever  might  be  his  disposition,  to  yield  precedence  to 
General  Grant.  Pierrepont  argued  the  question  at  length ; 


128  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

said  that  he  should  yield  the  precedence  himself,  and  he 
hoped  they  would  see  no  impropriety  in  yielding  it  to  an 
ex-President.  The  first  state  dinner  to  which  Grant  was 
invited  in  London  was  given  by  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
Count  Minister  suggested  that  Pierrepont  should  make  out  a 
plan  of  the  table  and  the  arrangement  of  the  guests,  which 
was  done.  The  programme  was  accepted  substantially  as 
made ;  precisely  how,  he  did  not  make  entirely  intelligible. 
He  said  that  he  also  insisted  that  Grant  should  not  make 
any  calls  except  upon  the  royal  family,  and  at  all  entertain 
ments  should  rank  next  the  Prince  of  Wales,  his  precedence 
being  conceded,  however,  as  a  courtesy,  rather  than  as  a 
right. 

Two  or  three  days  after  this  conversation  with  Pierrepont, 
we  joined  the  Right  Hon.  W.  E.  Forster  at  lunch,  when 
Grant's  reception  became  the  subject  of  conversation.  He 
said  quite  openly,  and  in  the  hearing  of  the  whole  table, 
that  he  did  not  think  Pierrepont  had  accomplished  any  desir 
able  result  by  his  stand  for  Grant;  that  it  was  a  rather 
undignified  strife  on  the  part  of  an  American  ex-President 
who  stood  in  no  need  of  any  homage  from  the  English 
people  which  would  not  have  been  cordially  accorded.  He 
also  remarked  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  not  the 
kind  of  man  at  whose  table  either  Grant  or  Pierrepont  could 
afford  to  strive  for  precedence.  Forster  at  the  same  time 
recited  a  letter  which  he  heard  had  been  received  by  Pierre 
pont  from  the  duke,  and  which  ran  substantially  as  follows  : 
"  That  it  would  gratify  him  if  the  greatest  general  of  the 
United  States  would  give  the  son  of  the  Duke  of  Welling 
ton  the  privilege  of  entertaining  him  first  at  dinner  in 
London."  Forster  laughed  over  this  as  if  he  thought  it 
the  invention  of  a  wag ;  others  regarded  it  as  genuine. 

I  heard  the  opinion  expressed,  by  some  whose  opinions 
were  entitled  to  respect,  that  the  "  London  Times  "  had  a 
great  deal  more  to  do  with  the  attentions  paid  to  General 
Grant  than  Mr.  Pierrepont  had ;  a  desire  to  repair  some  of 


TILDEN   AND    THE    COBDEN    CLUB  129 

the  unpleasant  impressions  made  in  America  by  the  English 
government  during  the  war  being  its  ruling  motive.  I 
presume  the  honors  were  easy. 

Though  Mr.  Tilden's  health  had  apparently  been  im 
proved  by  his  voyage  and  practical  release  from  political 
cares,  he  was  still  condemned  to  a  very  regular  and  almost 
ascetic  life,  and  compelled  to  decline  all  hospitalities  which 
were  showered  upon  him,  except  such  as  were  tendered  by 
old  friends  and  acquaintances.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to 
accommodate  his  hours  of  eating  and  rest  to  those  of  London 
society.  His  admirers  in  England  who  were  thus  deprived 
of  the  privileges  of  meeting  him  socially  testified  their 
respect  for  him  by  extending  to  him  promptly  upon  his 
arrival  the  privileges  of  the  Athenaeum  and  Keforrn  Clubs, 
for  which,  however,  he  had  little  use.  The  desire  to  avoid 
attentions,  which  it  became  occasionally  difficult  to  decline, 
induced  Mr.  Tilden  to  leave  London  for  Scotland  somewhat 
precipitately. 

We  reached  Edinburgh  on  the  12th  of  August.  We 
spent  ten  days  visiting  scenes  and  places  of  greatest  in 
terest  to  us  in  Scotland,  returning  to  London  on  the  22d. 

Among  the  letters  awaiting  him  at  his  hotel  was  one 
advising  him  of  his  election  as  an  honorary  member  of  the 
Cobden  Club,  to  which  he  sent  the  following  reply : 

"BUCKINGHAM  PALACE  HOTEL,  Aug.  23,  1877. 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  On  my  return  from  Scotland  yesterday  I  had 
the  honor  to  receive  your  favor  of  the  8th  inst.  advising 
me  of  my  election  as  an  honorary  member  of  the  Cobden 
Club.  I  hasten  to  assure  you  that  I  highly  appreciate  this 
courtesy,  and  that  I  am  most  happy  to  have  my  name  asso 
ciated  in  any  way  with  that  of  the  illustrious  statesman, 
the  usefulness  of  whose  life  it  is  the  worthy  purpose  of  your 
club  to  prolong. 

"  Yours  very  respectfully, 

"  S.  J.  TILDEN. 
"  HON.  THOMAS  BAYLEY  POTTER, 

"Honorary  Secretary  of  the  Cobden  Club." 

VOL.  II.-9 


130  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

On  the  23d  we  left  for  Canterbury,  where  Mr.  Tilden  spent 
a  few  days  making  the  acquaintance  of  his  kindred,  whose 
names  figure  conspicuously  in  most  of  the  parish  registers 
of  that  county  for  many  centuries.  From  the  beginning  the 
family  appeared  to  have  made  its  career  in  the  army  or  in 
the  church ;  and  of  the  descendants  of  whom  he  made  the 
acquaintance  while  here,  pretty  much  all  had  followed  the 
traditions  of  the  elders.  They  were  all  cultivated  and  re 
fined  people  with  moderate  incomes,  but  enjoying  in  a  high 
degree  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the  community  to 
which  they  belonged. 

I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  give  here  extracts  from  some  of 
the  very  few  letters  which  Mr.  Tilden  wrote  to  his  family 
during  his  stay  in  Europe.  Never  much  given  to  letter- 
writing,  the  difficulty  and  discomfort  which  he  already  ex 
perienced  in  handling  a  pen  prevented  his  writing  at  all  to 
any  but  his  family,  and  rarely  to  them. 

To  Mrs.  Augusta  Pelton,  the  wife  of  his  nephew,  he  wrote 
from  Canterbury,  Aug.  8,  1877  : 

tf  We  came  here  Friday  evening.  On  Saturday  we  passed 
the  morning  in  the  cathedral,  which  is  in  many  respects 
the  most  interesting  of  any  in  England.  In  the  afternoon 
we  went  out  six  miles  to  call  on  a  Mrs.  Tylden,  the  widow 
of  the  late  Vicar  of  Chilham.  She  had  two  weeks  ago 
written  inviting  me  to  call,  and  lunch  at  her  house.  Her 
husband  was  by  right  the  head  of  the  Milsted  branch  of 
the  family,  about  which  you  will  read  in  Burke's  "  Landed 
Gentry,"  under  that  name.  By  some  arrangement  of  the 
grandfather,  with  the  consent  of  the  eldest  son,  the 
landed  estate  had  gone  to  the  second  son  by  a  later 
marriage,  Sir  John  Maxwell  Tylden  ;  a  result  no  doubt  in 
duced  by  the  imprudence  of  the  father.  Her  son  of  nine 
teen  has  just  entered  the  artillery  as  a  lieutenant.  Her 
daughter  of  twenty-one  is  the  flower  of  the  Tyldens  here ; 
that  is  to  say,  a  girl  of  nice  manners,  and  by  much  the 
fairest  complexion  we  have  seen.  Yesterday  in  their  com 
pany  we  went  to  Milsted,  and  saw  several  members  of  the 
familv  which  succeeded  to  that  place,  though  not  living 


AT    THE   HOME    OF- HIS   ANCESTRY  131 

there  at  present.  Gen.  William  Burton  Tilden,  who  died 
in  the  Crimean  war,  and  who  was  the  third  brother,  left 
three  sons.  The  youngest,  now  in  Oxford  University, 
Itichard  by  name,  came  to  meet  us  with  his  step-mother, 
the  widow  of  the  general.  As  the  place  was  rented,  we 
met  at  the  residence  of  the  Vicar  of  Milsted.  He  is  a  Mr. 
Hilton,  a  genial  and  cultivated  person,  with  a  wife  and  three 
maiden  daughters,  who,  with  one  of  his  four  sons,  were  at 
home.  And  we  all  sat  down  to  a  very  nice  lunch ;  vis 
ited  the  manor-house  and  the  church,  and  then  went  to  a 
neighboring  church  at  Worm's  Hill,  which  was  an  earlier 
seat  of  the  same  family. 

"  A  special  interest  was  added  to  this  occasion  by  the  cir 
cumstance  that  Milsted  is  off  from  all  railroads,  and  in  a 
purely  rural  district.  We  saw  the  form  of  English  life  in 
the  middle  class,  well  to  do  and  cultivated,  and  in  the  depths 
of  the  country. 

"I  must  break  off,  for  it  is  growing  late,  and  we  start  early 
in  the  morning  for  Tenterden.  I  am  conscious  that  I  am 
writing  too  hastily  to  do  justice  to  the  picture  as  it  exists  in 
our  minds,  and  as  I  would  paint  it  to  yours." 

Mr.  Tilden  returned  to  London  on  the  30th  of  August, 
and  on  the  31st  left  for  Lowestoft,  on  the  east  coast  of 
England,  for  the  purpose  of  consulting  Dr.  Garrod,  who  had 
been  recommended  to  him  as  specially  qualified  to  deal 
with  troubles  like  those  with  which  he  was  contending. 

The  following  letter  was  addressed  to  his  sister,  Mrs. 
Pelton,  from  Lowestoft : 

"  LOWESTOFT,  Sept.  3,  1877. 

"DEAR  MARY:  This  is  a  sea-shore  place,  on  the  eastern 
coast  of  England,  washed  by  what  is  called  the  German 
ocean.  It  is  rather  a  select  spot,  ten  miles  south  of  the 
larger  town,  Yarmouth.  The  house  in  which  I  am  is  within 
two  hundred  feet  of  the  water,  and  my  room,  a  little  one  in 
the  fourth  story,  fronts  upon  the  sea.  Of  course,  the  ful 
ness  of  the  house  has  elevated  me  to  such  a  place.  We  left 
Canterbury  on  the  evening  of  Friday,  slept  in  London,  and 
at  twelve  the  next  morning  I  started  for  this  place,  one  hun 
dred  and  seventeen  miles  from  London. 

w  Mr.  Bigelow  went  the  same  afternoon  to  see  some  friends 


132  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

in  Surrey,  and  is  expected  here  this  evening,  —  for  it  is 
now  six,  of  a  rainy  day,  and  I  can  scarcely  see  to  write. 

"  The  motive  of  my  coming  here  is  not  for  the  public,  but 
may  be  mentioned  to  the  family.  Dr.  Garrod,  who  is,  no 
doubt,  the  best  man  on  gout,  rheumatism,  and  the  peculiar 
malady  (arthritis)  which  affects  a  joint  of  my  first  and 
second  fingers  of  the  left  hand,  whom  I  had  one  consulta 
tion  with  in  London,  has  come  here  for  two  months  of  recre 
ation,  extending  to  October  1.  It  is  difficult  to  see  much  of 
him  in  London,  but  he  consented  to  see  me  here,  where  he 
is  perfectly  at  leisure.  It  was  a  special  opportunity  for 
him  to  learn  all  possible  of  my  case,  and  for  me  to  draw 
from  him  the  results  of  all  the  knowledge,  reflection,  and 
experience  he  is  capable  of  applying  to  it.  So  I  thought 
at  this  stage  of  my  journey  ings,  to  discard  everything  else 
and  come  here,  and  stay  as  long  as  I  can  to  contribute  to 
that  object. 

"He  has  a  nice  family,  with  whom  I  have  become  quite 
well  acquainted.  He  appears  to  take  a  special  and  personal 
interest  in  me,  and  I  have  come  to  a  clear  conclusion  that  he 
has  more  knowledge,  experience,  reflection,  and  judgment 
on  such  cases —  very  far  more — than  any  man  I  have  known. 
As  I  have  the  opinion  that  the  malady,  though  specially 
affecting  only  two  small  joints,  is,  in  all  probability,  the 
result  of  a  general  cause,  and  the  improvement  would  affect 
the  general  health,  and  the  deterioration  would  be  likely  to 
touch  other  joints  and  probably  many,  besides  injuring 
the  general  constitution,  —  if  I  can  get  real  benefit  from  this 
gentleman,  it  is  the  most  important  thing  that  concerns 
me  —  altogether  out  of  the  dimensions  of  mere  ordinary 
travel. 

"  So  I  have  thought  it  best  to  come  here  now,  and  stay  a"s 
long  as  seems  useful,  and  then  go  on  my  way,  returning  to 
London  early  in  October,  —  say  a  week  or  ten  days  before 
I  sail,  —  to  take  a  final  observation  of  the  condition  of 
things. 

"This  statement  is  very  long,  and  seems  tedious,  but  per 
haps  you  may  like  to  know  all  about  the  matter. 

"My  general  health  is  improving  all  the  time.  I  can  take 
more  exercise,  and  am  growing  stronger.  The  tendency  is 
for  the  physical  discomforts  which  attend  such  a  malady, 
and  which,  between  us, — I  don't  say  that  except  to  very 
few,  —  rob  existence  of  almost  every  recreation  and  capacity 


AT    THE    HOME    OF   HIS   ANCESTRY  133 

of  a  pleasurable  nature,  to  diminish  slowly,  by  irregular 
steps,  in  which  you  sometimes  doubt  all  real  improvement, 
but  which  yet,  measured  at  intervals,  show  some  decided 
progress.  The  opinion  has  been  growing  upon  me  that  I 
shall  find  it  expedient  to  keep  from  everything  which  inter 
feres,  and  to  continue  the  process  for  a  year  or  more.  I 
must  remember  that  it  is  now  but  two  months  since  I  began 
the  measures  which  looked  to  bettering  my  condition  at 
Sea  Girt. 

"Resuming  my  letter  this  morning  (September  4),  I  have 
crowded  the  rest  of  the  topic  on  the  last  sheet  and  begin 
anew. 

"  I  gave  —  in  a  letter  to  Augusta,  I  think  —  some  account, 
hurried  and  imperfect,  of  our  visit  to  Milsted,  and  of  the 
people  we  saw  there.  I  intended  to  make  a  better  sketch, 
but  it  is  not  easy  to  return  to  a  topic  once  passed,  or  to  turn 
from  what  follows  it  in  the  current  of  events. 

"  On  Wednesday,  I  believe  it  was,  we  made  an  excursion 
to  Tenterden, — Mr.  Bigelow,  Mrs.  Tylden,  and  her  son, 
the  young  lieutenant  of  the  artillery.  The  young  lady  was 
detained  at  home  by  some  visitors. 

"  Passing  from  Canterbury  to  Ashford,  some  sixteen  miles, 
by  rail,  we  took  a  landau  at  the  latter  place  for  Tenterden. 
Our  ride  was  through  a  beautiful  country,  perfectly  rural, 
and  having  in  it  all  the  elements  of  picturesque  loveliness. 

"The  fields,  as  you  know,  are  generally  separated  by 
hedges ;  the  moisture  of  the  climate  preserves  and  renews 
the  verdure,  and  the  cloudy  film  that  nearly  always  veils  the 
sun,  and  softens  the  light,  lends  an  aspect  to  nature  like 
that  you  will  see  in  twilights  under  our  skies  or  in  objects 
under  shadow. 

"  We  stopped  at  the  White  Lion,  a  quaint  old  tavern,  that 
would  be  at  once  pulled  down  in  our  country  as  being  a 
century  or  two  behind  the  times,  but  which  was  interesting 
as  a  relic  of  the  past.  A\re  visited  the  church  and  its  yard 
before  lunch.  Mr.  Bigelow  reclined  upon  the  grass  and 
read,  while  the  rest  of  us  ascended  the  narrow,  spiral,  stone 
staircase  of  the  steeple.  I  will  hear  record  that  the  plat 
form  is  reached  at  one  hundred  and  twenty-two  feet  by 
one  hundred  and  forty  steps.  From  it,  the  view  on  every 
side  was  fine. 

"  The  town  is  antique,  mostly  in  one  street,  the  houses  of 
brick  and  the  roofs  of  tiles,  with  everywhere  an  appear- 


134  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDE N 

ance  of  age.  It  is  in  a  sequestered,  agricultural  region,  not 
much  invaded  by  modern  inventions. 

"  By  the  aid  of  the  ordnance  map,  which  is  on  a  very  large 
scale  (twenty-four  inches  to  the  mile),  I  was  able  to 
select  the  place  most  worthy  of  being  looked  at ;  and  went 
to  see  a  large  and  ancient  farm-house  close  to  what  is  called 
on  the  map  Tilden's  Gill.  That  is  a  depression  on  which 
water  runs,  except  when  the  period  is  dry.  It  is  wooded  in 
a  narrow  strip.  The  farm  is  called  the  Belgar  farm,  and 
was  sold  in  1873  or  4.  It  contains  about  one  hundred  and 
forty  acres.  The  portions  of  the  land  sold  are  described 
in  the  advertisement  and  conveyances  as  Tilden's  Gill,  and 
embrace  the  most  opulent  part  of  the  area  called  by  that 
name.  The  farm-house  also  seems  to  have  a  geographical 
relation  to  the  Gill,  to  make  it  more  probable  than  any  other 
place  that  it  was  the  residence  of  the  man  from  whom  the  Gill 
took  its  designation.  The  house  is  a  large  and  old  structure, 
of  an  apparent  age  corresponding  with  this  theory.  It  is  of 
brick,  or  mainly  so,  with  some  accessories  of  plaster.  My 
recollection  is  that  the  will  of  Nathaniel  Tilden  in  1641, 
an  extract  from  which  is  found  in  Dean's  "  History  of  Scitu- 
ate,"  speaks  of  the  house  as  stone ;  but  it  is  said  that  brick 
houses  are  sometimes  in  the  local  usage  spoken  of  as  stone, 
and  that  there  are,  strictly  speaking,  no  stone  houses,  that 
material  not  being  used. 

"In  the  main  room  of  the  house,  in  which  we  were  most 
of  the  time,  the  beams  stood  out  from  the  ceiling  and  were 
numerous  and  uncased,  and  at  the  large  windows  were 
propped  by  an  iron  standard.  A  part  of  the  house  was 
neat  and  comfortable,  while  some  was  used  for  inferior  pur 
poses.  There  is  a  nice  garden  and  flowers,  and  a  pear-tree 
trained  against  one  of  the  walls,  large,  full  of  fruit,  and 
vines  were  abundant.  The  house  is  quite  a  distance  from 
the  public  road,  being  reached  by  a  lane. 

"  The  occupant  is  Thomas  Coveney,  who  is  recently  upon 
the  place  —  a  respectable,  middle-aged  farmer. 

"  He  had  quite  a  hunt  for  a  map  on  which  the  names  of  the 
tracts  composing  the  farm  were  expected  to  be  found,  and 
at  length  discovered  the  advertisement  and  the  accompany 
ing  map  for  the  recent  sale  of  the  property.  That  map  he 
insisted  on  leaving  out  and  giving  me,  negating  my  in 
quiry  whether  it  might  not  sometime  be  found  useful  to 
them. 


AT    THE    FUNERAL    OF    TRIERS  135 

"  I  will  add  that  the  farm  of  which  I  have  been  writing  was 
bought  at  the  recent  sale  by  F.  T.  Carey,  Esq.,  Stanbrook 
Villa,  Gravesend,  Kent. 

"  On  the  whole  it  is  probable,  but  not  certain,  the  house  I 
saw  was  the  house  of  our  family  before  1634,  or  two  hundred 
and  forty-three  years  ago. 

"  I  must  now  close,  for  I  have  scribbled  over  the  last  of 
the  six  sheets  to  which  the  varieties  of  the  Canterbury  im 
prints  are  limited.  Much  affectionate  regards  for  Willie, 
Gussie,  Laura,  yourself,  and  all. 

"I  am  truly  yours, 

"S.  J.  TILDEN." 

While  at  Lowestoft,  and  on  the  5th  of  September,  the 
news  reached  us  of  the  death  of  M.  Thiers.  On  the  fol 
lowing  day  we  left  for  London,  and  on  the  7th  for  Paris, 
where  we  took  rooms  at  the  Westminster  Hotel  in  the  Rue 
de  la  Paix.  Early  on  the  following  morning,  and  while  we 
were  breakfasting,  my  old  and  valued  friend,  the  late  Will 
iam  H.  Huntington,  called  to  say  that  Mr.  Snialley,  the  Lon 
don  representative  of  the  "  Tribune,"  was  in  town  and  had 
secured  a  capacious  carriage  for  the  purpose  of  witnessing 
the  funeral  solemnities  of  the  illustrious  French  statesman 
of  the  Place  St.  George,  and  if  it  would  be  agreeable  to 
us,  he  would  be  glad  to  have  us  join  him.  Mr.  Smalley 
was  good  enough  to  call  for  us  about  eleven.  Our  party 
was  fortunate  in  being  promptly  recognized  by  one  of  the 
gentlemen  who  during  our  Civil  war  had  been,  and  still 
continued  to  be,  attached  to  the  ministry  of  foreign  affairs. 
He  gave  us  tickets  which  entitled  us  to  all  the  privileges  of 
the  Diplomatic  Corps. 

After  the  religious  ceremonies  at  the  church  we  resumed 
our  seats  in  our  carriage ;  and  when  the  cortege  began  to 
move  were  rather  surprised  to  find  ourselves  placed  among 
the  chief  mourners,  and  our  carriage  next  but  one  to  the 
hearse  —  where  by  virtue  of  our  position  we  became  objects 
of  the  sympathy  of  the  largest  crowd  of  people  I  ever  saw 
in  any  one  day.  For  several  miles  on  our  journey  to  Pere 


136  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

la  Chaise,  every  window,  balcony,  roof,  pavement,  indeed 
every  standing  place  commanding  a  view  of  the  procession, 
was  beaming  with  faces;  even  the  street  was  solid  with 
people  almost  up  to  the  wheels  of  our  carriage,  leaving 
scant  room  for  the  police  to  walk  their  patrol.  We  could 
not  get  within  fifty  feet  of  the  tomb,  and  of  course  heard 
little  of  the  discourses,  which  were  delivered  in  conversa 
tional  tones  by  speakers  invisible  to  any  who  were  more 
than  twenty  feet  distant. 

The  question  whether  the  mortal  remains  of  the  wily  old 
politician  belonged  to  the  Eepublicans  or  to  the  McMahon 
administration  was  settled  by  the  demonstration  we  had 
witnessed.  There  could  be  no  mistaking  the  political  signif 
icance  of  the  vast  but  orderly,  respectful,  and  sympathetic 
crowd  which  lined  the  way  of  the  dead  statesman  on  his 
last  journey,  and  which  had  been  gathered  without  the  aid 
or  apparent  sympathy  of  a  single  government  drum  or 
place  man.  It  was  a  spontaneous  and  eloquent  admission 
that  in  his  death  France  had  lost  what  Paris  at  least  re 
garded  as  her  most  important,  if  not  her  most  illustrious, 
citizen. 

On  the  12th  of  September  Mr.  Tilden  and  I  called  upon 
Mr.  Ganibetta,  with  whom  I  had  a  slight  acquaintance, 
contracted  before  he  had  become  one  of  the  controlling 
forces  in  French  politics.  He  had  been  condemned,  only 
the  day  before  our  visit,  by  one  of  the  tribunals,  to  fine  or 
imprisonment  for  some  act  of  omission  or  commission,  the 
nature  of  which  I  cannot  recall.  In  reply  to  our  inquiries 
about  it  he  gave  us  to  understand  that  there  was  more  pol 
itics  than  law  in  the  judgment ;  that  it  gave  him  the  least 
possible  concern ;  that  "judicial  delays"  would  throw  the 
final  decision  of  the  questions  at  issue  over  the  election, 
then  close  at  hand,  when  his  parliamentary  privileges  would 
protect  him  from  arrest.  He  took  his  election  for  granted, 
which,  as  events  proved,  he  was  entitled  to  do.  To  the 
question  whether  the  new  assembly  would  meet  soon 


INTERVIEW    WITH    GAMBETTA  137 

enough  to  clothe  him  with  parliamentary  privileges,  he 
replied  that  the  legislative  bodies  would  meet  immediately 
after  the  election  under  a  new  law,  enacted  since  the  organ 
ization  of  the  provisional  government  and  for  the  sole  pur 
pose  of  embarrassing  the  Republicans,  but  which  seemed 
destined,  he  said,  to  be  useful  to  the  Republicans  only. 

In  reply  to  an  inquiry  of  Mr.  Tilden,  Mr.  Gambetta 
said  that  the  Republican  voters  in  France  numbered  a  little 
less  than  five  millions,  and  their  opponents  a  little  less  than 
two  millions ;  that  the  Republicans  consisted,  in  a  large 
proportion,  of  the  ouvriers,  or  wage-earning  class,  and  of 
the  very  large  and  more  intelligent  class  of  people  with 
their  ptcule  or  small  capital  who  work  on  their  own 
account  —  that  is,  are  not  salaried,  but  to  a  great  extent 
independent  of  masters  or  of  capitalists.  This  class  he 
regarded  as  made  up  of  the  most  independent  voters  in 
France.  He  described  them  as  palentts,  or  men  who  had 
licenses  to  pursue  their  respective  trades  or  business  on 
their  own  account.  The  third  quotum  were  acquisitions, 
not  very  numerous,  from  other  parties.  The  whole  number 
of  registered  voters  was  about  eleven  millions.  The  officers 
of  the  civil  service,  exclusive  of  the  army  and  navy,  he 
estimated  at  about  three  hundred  thousand;  the  mayors 
of  cantons  numbered  about  thirty  thousand,  who,  until 
recently,  had  been  named  by  the  government.  They  were 
now,  he  said,  elected  by  the  cantons,  but  the  necessity  of 
having  men  for  these  places  possessed  of  some  official 
experience  and  cultivation  forbade  rapid  changes ;  conse 
quently  popular  influence  was  not  yet  much  felt  by  them, 
though  it  was  gradually  penetrating  their  circle.  He 
thought  there  were  many  Democrats  among  the  lower 
clergy. 

As  our  interview  was  in  the  editorial  rooms  of  the 
journal,  of  which  he  was  editor  and  proprietor,  our  con 
versation  naturally  drifted  toward  the  press.  Among  other 
things  he  said  that  the  circulation  of  the  newspaper  press 


138  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

in  France  had  decupled  in  ten  years.  This  extraordinary 
statement,  which  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  exaggerated, 
is  rather  an  illustration  of  the  restriction  and  oppression 
which  weighed  upon  the  press  under  the  Empire,  than  of 
the  multiplication  of  readers,  though  their  numbers,  of 
course,  had  been  steadily  on  the  increase. 

Mr.  Gambetta  professed  to  have  no  apprehension  of  the 
army ;  he  said  it  was  now  thoroughly  national  in  its  feelings 
and  sympathies  ;  it  understood  and  kept  posted  on  the  various 
political  problems  of  the  day,  and  he  was  persuaded  that  it 
could  not  be  used  for  mischief.  In  this  respect  he  said  the 
army  now  is  very  much  changed  from  what  it  was  under  the 
Empire  :  it  is  animated  by  fresh  and  more  elevated  purposes. 
He  exhibited  the  utmost  confidence  in  the  future  of  the 
Republic,  and  made  light  of  the  opposition,  from  whatever 
source  it  came. 

Such  was  the  substance  of  an  interview  which  lasted  about 
an  hour.  Gambetta  had  become  quite  fleshy,  and  I  was 
told  could  not  be  persuaded  to  take  exercise.  It  was  mani 
fest  even  then,  though  riches  and  honor  might  be,  length 
of  days  was  not  in  store  for  him. 

On  the  17th  Louis  Blanc  was  one  of  our  guests  at  din 
ner,  in  the  course  of  which  he  gave  an  interesting  account 
of  his  acquaintance  with  Louis  Napoleon,  which,  as  I  have 
never  seen  it  in  print,  I  am  sure  I  need  make  no  apology 
for  setting  down  here.  He  said  that  in  consequence  of 
Louis'  attempt  to  escape  from  his  prison  at  Boulogne,  he 
was  tried  and  condemned  to  imprisonment  at  Ham.  On 
this  occasion  he  was  treated,  not  only  by  the  press,  but  by 
the  senators  or  peers  of  France  who  tried  him,  with  great 
severity ;  the  vilest  epithets  and  grossest  indignities  were 
showered  upon  him.  Louis  Blanc,  who  was  then  pro 
prietor  of  a  journal  in  Paris,  wrote  an  article  expostulating 
with  his  uncharitable  colleagues,  closing  with  the  remark, 
in  substance,  "That  many  of  those  who  now  abused  the 
prisoner  would,  had  he  been  successful,  have  cheerfully 


LOUIS   BLANC   AND   LOUIS    NAPOLEON          139 

licked  his  boots."  Napoleon,  who  was  allowed  every  com 
fort  and  even  luxury  at  Ham,  addressed  a  letter  to  Louis 
Blanc,  thanking  him  for  the  article,  and  asking  him  to  come 
and  spend  a  few  days  with  him  at  Ham.  Louis  Blanc 
wrote  in  reply  that  he  could  not  associate  himself  in  any 
way  or  degree  with  the  august  prisoner's  schemes  of  ambi 
tion,  past  or  future,  but  he  would  come  to  him  with  pleas 
ure  as  to  a  fellow-citizen  in  trouble.  He  went  accordingly 
and  spent  three  days,  shut  up  with  him  in  the  prison,  where 
they  had  no  resource  but  conversation,  which  Louis  Blanc 
spoke  of  as  something  of  a  hardship,  inasmuch  as  Napoleon 
was  not  at  all  fluent  of  speech.  "  He  seemed  ever  to  be 
seeking  the  word  to  express  his  idea,  that  did  not  come. 
This  made  conversation  with  him  tedious." 

Napoleon  spoke  at  great  length  of  his  political  plans,  and 
while  he  professed  to  be  a  friend  of  universal  suffrage,  and 
ready  to  do  whatever  the  people  of  France  desired  their 
ruler  to  do,  when  asked  by  Louis  Blanc  in  what  direction 
and  to  what  ends  he  would  use  his  influence  to  bend  or 
direct  the  national  will,  whether  he  would  strive  to  give  it 
a  Democratic  or  a  despotic  tendency,  Louis  Blanc  said  he 
could  never  get  from  him  a  reply.  He  repeatedly  tried 
him  on  this  subject,  but  always  without  success. 

Louis  Blanc  had  been  addressing  some  of  his  constituents 
during  the  afternoon,  and  he  amused  us  by  enumerating 
some  of  the  points  of  his  speech  which  had  proved  most 
successful.  The  one  he  made  upon  President  McMahon,  he 
said,  was  applauded  with  frenzy.  He  told  the  story  of  one  of 
the  first  Napoleon's  generals  addressing  his  soldiers  on  the 
eve  of  an  election.  "  Soldiers,"  he  said,  "you  will  vote  as 
you  please  ;  you  are  perfectly  free  to  act  according  to  your 
convictions  ;  but  if  any  man  does  not  vote  this  ticket,  I  will 
run  my  sabre  through  him."  The  story  had  at  least  the  merit 
of  antiquity,  and  with  the  audience  he  was  addressing  his 
version  probably  did  not  seriously  compromise  his  credit  as 
an  historian. 


140  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

During  his  exile  in  London,  after  the  fall  of  the  govern 
ment  in  '48,  and  after  he  had  acquired  a  tolerable  command 
of  the  English  language,  Louis  Blanc  said  he  was  invited 
to  deliver  a  lecture  for  the  first  time  in  English.  He  was 

O 

to  dine  that  day  with  Edward  Dixon,  then  editor  of  the 
"  London  Athenaeum."  The  prospect  of  meeting  a  distin 
guished  London  audience,  and  attempting  to  talk  to  them  in 
what  to  him  was  a  foreign  tongue,  made  him  very  nervous  ; 
and  the  more  he  heard  about  the  audience,  the  more  nervous 
he  became.  During  the  dinner  he  suddenly  lost  his  voice, 
and  found  himself  incapable  of  uttering  a  word  in  a  tone 
above  a  whisper.  He  was  in  despair.  What  was  to  be  done  ? 
Who  was  to  do  it  ?  There  seemed  to  be  but  one  course  to 
pursue,  and  that  was  to  tell  the  truth  and  dismiss  the  audi 
ence  ;  but  it  was  well  known  that  the  audience  was  to 
consist  of  everything  most  distinguished  in  London  society, 
where  Louis  Blanc  had  become  already  a  great  favorite. 
The  more  they  told  him  of  the  audience,  the  worse  he  felt 
and  the  more  feeble  became  his  voice.  Finally  it  was 
decided  that  he  and  Dixon  should  show  themselves  on  the 
stage  and  let  the  audience  see,  if  they  could  not  hear,  that 
he  was  unable  to  speak  audibly.  They  accordingly  ascended 
the  stage  together.  Dixon  proceeded  to  make  Louis  Blanc's 
excuses,  and,  when  he  had  done,  Louis  Blanc  stepped  for 
ward  to  verify  his  friend's  statements.  Dixon's  remarks 
had  been  received  with  sympathetic  applause  by  the  entire 
audience,  but  when  Louis  Blanc  appeared,  the  applause 
was  deafening.  When  it  had  subsided  suificiently,  he 
attempted  to  say  a  few  words,  mainly  for  the  purpose  of 
showing  his  dephonetized  condition,  when  to  his  utter 
surprise  his  voice  sounded  clearer  and  louder  than  ever 
before  in  a  public  assembly.  He  said  he  was  never  able  to 
speak  more  effectively,  and  went  on  for  two  whole  hours 
without  the  slightest  inconvenience.  Evidently  the  applause 
with  which  he  was  received  cured  the  nervousness  which 
alone  was  responsible  for  his  temporary  aphony. 


GENERAL    CAVAIGNAC    AND    HIS    MOTHER       141 

Of  the  mode  in  which  the  Church  influenced  the  politics 
of  France  in  those  days  Louis  Blanc  told  a  curious  story. 
The  brother  of  General  Cavaignac  was  a  libre-penseur ,  as 
well  as  a  very  intimate  friend  of  Louis  Blanc,  in  whose 
arms,  in  fact,  he  died.  He  came  one  day  to  consult  Louis 
Blanc  about  what  he  characterized,  properly  enough,  as  a 
most  delicate  matter.  He  said  that  his  mother  for  the  past 
two  weeks  had  been  pressing  him  every  day  to  go  to  the 
priest  and  confess  himself.  It  was  no  use  to  tell  her,  he 
said,  that  he  did  not  believe  in  a  priest  pardoning  sins  ;  that 
he  did  not  wish  to  act  like  a  hypocrite  by  pretending  to. 
These  protestations  only  redoubled  her  pertinacity  and 
anxiety.  She  asked  if  he  was  willing  to  embitter  her 
remaining  days,  not  only  by  refusing  her  request  and  the 
assurance  of  his  salvation,  but  was  intent  upon  persisting 
in  a  course  which  assured  hor  of  his  damnation.  This, 
with  sobs  and  weeping  and  tearing  of  hair  and  getting 
upon  the  knees  to  him,  had  been  his  daily  discipline  for 
more  than  a  fortnight.  He  begged  his  friend  to  tell  him 
what  he  ought  to  do.  Louis  Blanc  replied  to  him  that  the 
question  he  had  asked  him  was  one  which  he  must  decide 
for  himself,  and  declined  to  accept  the  responsibility  of 
advising  him.  Two  days  later  Louis  Blanc  heard  that  he 
had  been  to  the  confessional ;  and  the  clerical  journals 
immediately  after  his  decease  had  a  general  glorification 
over  his  "conversion,"  and  his  experiences  in  the  presence 
of  death,,  especially  of  the  consolation  which  the  Church 
only  could  provide,  and  of  which  Cavaignac  had  till  then 
always  made  light.  It  is  in  this  way,  he  said,  that  the 
priests  retain  their  power  through  the  women,  through  the 
mothers  and  the  sisters  of  the  men,  that  no  man  had 
more  often  dwelt  upon  this  fact  than  Cavaignac  himself. 

We  left  Paris,  and  returned  to  London  on  the  8th  of 
October.  In  crossing  the  channel  we  found  the  sea  very 
rough.  When  about  half  the  way  over,  a  sea  struck  our 
steamer  with  such  violence  as  to  carry  away  one  of  the 


142  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

davits  and  the  boat  suspended  on  it,  and  deluged  the  deck 
and  Mr.  Tilden  as  well.  He  was  obliged  to  sit  in  his  wet 
clothes,  not  only  until  we  arrived  at  Dover,  but  in  the  cars 
during  the  rest  of  our  journey  to  London  ;  in  all  more  than 
four  hours.  It  was  a  fearful  exposure  for  a  person  in  his 
condition,  and  filled  me  writh  alarm.  He  arrived  at  his 
hotel  in  London  chilled  through  and  almost  insensible. 
After  a  warm  bath  and  some  supper  he  felt  somewhat  re 
freshed  ;  about  half-past  ten,  however,  and  immediately 
after  he  retired  to  his  bed,  he  had  a  chill,  which  was  soon 
followed  by  a  fever.  I  sent  for  Dr.  Garrod,  who  was  then 
in  London,  and  who  prescribed  for  him.  He  said  the  lower 
tips  of  Mr.  Tilden's  lungs  were  slightly  congested,  and  that 
he  must  remain  in  bed  for  a  day  or  two.  For  two  days 
we  were  in  doubt  whether  he  would  be  well  enough  to  sail 
for  home  in  the  "  Scythia,"  in  which  we  had  taken  passage 
for  the  12th.  Happily,  however,  he  continued  to  im 
prove,  and  we  were  enabled  to  reach  Liverpool  in  time  to 
sail  as  had  been  arranged,  arriving  in  New  York  on  the 
25th. 

On  the  evening  of  the  27th  Mr.  Tilden  was  serenaded 
at  his  residence  in  Gramercy  park  by  the  Young  Men's 
Democratic  Club,  whose  presence,  of  course,  attracted  a 
crowd.  In  reply  to  a  few  words  of  welcome  from  the  late 
Augustus  Schell,  Mr.  Tilden  made  a  short  speech  which, 
because  of  his  allusions  to  our  great  national  staple,  came 
to  be  known  as  the  Indian  Corn  Speech.  In  the  course 
of  it  he  said  : 

"  I  predict  a  great  increase  in  the  consumption  of  our 
corn  by  Great  Britain  over  the  60,000,000  bushels  which 
it  reached  last  year.  It  is  the  most  natural  and  sponta 
neous  of  our  cereal  products.  Our  present  crop  ouo-ht  to 
be  1,500,000,000  bushels  against  300,000,000  of  wheat. 
It  is  but  little  inferior  to  wheat  in  nutritive  power.  It 
costs  less  than  one-half  on  the  seaboard,  and  much  less 
than  one-half  on  the  farm.  It  can  be  cooked,  by  those 


THE    INDIAN    CORN   SPEECH  143 

who  consent  to  learn  how,  into  many  delicious  forms  of 
human  food.  Why  should  not  the  British  workmen  have 
cheaper  food  ?  Why  should  not  our  farmers  have  a  great 
market  ?  Why  should  not  our  carriers  have  the  transpor 
tation  ? 

"Let  us  remember  that  commercial  exchanges  must  have 
some  element  of  mutuality.  Whoever  obstructs  the  means 
of  payment,  obstructs  also  the  facilities  of  sale.  We  must 
relax  our  barbarous  revenue  system  so  as  not  unnecessarily 
to  retard  the  natural  processes  of  trade.  We  must  no 
longer  legislate  against  the  wants  of  humanity  and  the 
beneficence  of  God."  [Applause.] 

He  also  referred  to  what  he  termed  "  the  greatest  po 
litical  crime  in  our  history  "  in  impressive  terms. 

"In  the  canvass  of  1876  the  federal  government  em 
barked  in  the  contest  with  unscrupulous  activity.  A  mem 
ber  of  the  cabinet  was  the  head  of  a  partisan  committee. 
Agents  stood  at  the  doors  of  the  pay  ofiices  to  exact  con 
tributions  from  official  subordinates.  The  whole  office-hold 
ing  class  were  made  to  exhaust  their  power.  Even  the 
army,  for  the  first  time,  to  the  disgust  of  the  soldiers  and 
many  of  the  officers,  was  moved  about  the  country  as  an 
electioneering  instrument.  All  this  was  done  under  the 
eye  of  the  beneficiary  of  it,  who  was  making  the  air  vocal 
with  professions  of  civil  service  reform,  to  be  begun  after 
he  had  himself  exhausted  all  the  immoral  advantages  of 
civil  service  abuses. 

"  The  step  from  an  extreme  degree  of  corrupt  abuses  in 
the  elections  to  a  subversion  of  the  elective  system  itself  is 
natural.  No  sooner  was  the  election  over  than  the  whole 
power  of  the  office-holding  class,  led  by  a  cabinet  min 
ister,  was  exerted  to  procure,  and  did  procure,  from  the 
State  canvassers  of  two  States,  illegal  and  fraudulent  certifi 
cates  which  were  made  a  pretext  for  a  false  count  of  the 
electoral  votes.  To  enable  these  officers  to  exercise  the 
immoral  courage  necessary  to  the  parts  assigned  to  them, 
and  to  relieve  them  from  the  timidity  which  God  has  im 
planted  in  the  human  bosom  as  a  limit  to  a  criminal  au 
dacity,  detachments  of  the  army  were  sent  to  afford  them 
shelter. 


144  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"The  expedients  by  which  the  votes  of  the  electors 
chosen  by  the  people  of  these  two  States  were  rejected, 
and  the  votes  of  the  electors  having  the  illegal  and  fraudu 
lent  certificates  were  counted,  and  the  menace  of  usurpation 
by  the  President  of  the  Senate  of  dictatorial  power  over  all 
the  questions  in  controversy,  and  the  menaced  enforce 
ment  of  his  pretended  authority  by  the  army  and  navy,  the 
terrorism  of  the  business  classes,  and  the  kindred  measures 
by  which  the  false  count  was  consummated,  are  known. 

"  The  magnitude  of  a  political  crime  must  be  measured  by 
its  natural  and  necessary  consequences.  Our  great  Repub 
lic  has  been  the  only  example  in  the  world  of  a  regular  and 
orderly  transfer  of  governmental  succession  by  the  elective 
system.  To  destroy  the  habit  of  traditionary  respect  for 
the  will  of  the  people,  as  declared  through  the  electoral 
forms,  and  to  exhibit  our  institutions  as  a  failure,  is  the 
greatest  possible  wrong  to  our  own  country.  The  Ameri 
can  people  will  not  condone  it  under  any  pretext  or  for  any 
purpose.1 

"  Young  men,  in  the  order  of  nature  we  who  have 
guarded  the  sacred  traditions  of  our  free  government  will 
soon  leave  that  work  to  you.  Within  the  life  of  most  who 
hear  me  our  Republic  will  embrace  a  hundred  millions  of 
people.  Whether  its  institutions  shall  be  preserved  in  sub 
stance  and  in  spirit,  as  well  as  in  barren  forms,  and  will 
continue  to  be  a  blessing  to  the  toiling  millions  here  and 
a  good  example  to  mankind,  now  everywhere  seeking  a 
larger  share  in  the  management  of  their  own  affairs,  will 
depend  on  you. 

"  I  avail  myself  of  the  occasion  to  thank  you,  and  to  thank 
all  in  our  State  and  country  who  have  accorded  to  me  their 
support,  not  personal  to  myself,  but  for  the  cause  I  have 
represented,  and  which  has  embraced  the  largest  and 
holiest  interests  of  humanity." 


Writings  and  Speeches,"  Vol.  II.  p.  488. 


CHAPTER  V 

The  trials  and  temptations  of  a  bachelor   millionaire  —  Proposals  of 
marriage  in  verse  and  prose. 

MR.  TILDEN'S  political  opponents  gave  an  involuntary 
but  unequivocal  recognition  of  his  singularly  unassailable 
public  and  private  character  by  their  exaggeration  of  his 
wealth,  and  by  their  misrepresentations  of  the  use  he  made 
of  it.  Failing  to  find  any  political  doctrine  that  could  be 
successfully  challenged  on  moral  grounds,  or  any  personal 
infirmities  or  delinquencies  upon  which  they  could  make 
a  combined  attack,  they  condescended  to  appeal  to  one  of 
the  basest  sentiments  of  our  unregenerate  nature  by  making 
a  party  shibboleth  of  "  Old  Tilden's  barrell."  This  gave 
great  notoriety  to  his  wealth  and  a  proportionate  annoyance 
to  himself,  for  every  mail  brought  him  proffers  of  assistance 
in  distributing  it,  not  only  from  all  parts  of  his  own  coun 
try,  but,  not  infrequently,  from  foreign  lands. 

Of  the  number  and  variety  of  these  communications  only 
men  of  large  wealth  are  apt  to  have  any  idea,  nor  they, 
unless  their  stores  have  had  the  factitious  advertising  which 
the  Eepublican  press  and  touters  gave  to  Mr.  Tilden's  ac 
cumulations.  Churches  wanted  their  debts  paid ;  parents 
wanted  children  adopted,  or  educated,  or  established  in 
business ;  debtors  wanted  their  farms  cleared  of  mortgages  ; 
unsuccessful  speculators  wished  help  to  try  their  luck  again  ; 
inventors  appealed  to  him  to  buy  an  interest  in  their 
patents ;  mothers  invited  him  to  marry  their  daughters ; 
gentle  maidens  of  marriageable  age  asked  for  his  photograph 
in  exchange  for  their  own,  and  the  honor  of  a  correspond 
ence  with  him ;  cranks  wished  him  to  let  them  cure  him ; 
promoters  wanted,  some  'to  have  him  join  them  in  great 

VOL.  II. -10 


146  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

mining  enterprises,  others  in  draining  swamps,  and  others 
in  cornering  the  timber  of  the  country.  The  largest  number 
of  applications  came  from  men  and  women  wishing  to  mar 
ket  their  political  influence  for  his. 

The  late  George  Bancroft  is  reported  to  have  said  that  his 
experience  in  teaching  the  Round  Hill  Academy  at  North 
ampton  removed  whatever  doubt  he  had  ever  entertained  of 
the  total  depravity  of  human  nature.  But  neither  priest  nor 
pedagogue  are  often,  if  ever,  forced  into  such  a  disgusting 
familiarity  with  the  morbid  anatomy  of  human  society  as 
a  notoriously  wealthy  and  successful  candidate  for  popular 
favor.  In  this  respect  Mr.  Tilden's  experience  was  unique, 
for  he  was  the  first  candidate  for  the  chief  magistracy  of  the 
United  States  whose  wealth  was  sufficient  to  attract  public 
attention,  and  whose  heart  and  hand  were  unappropri 
ated.  There  were  times  when,  had  Mr.  Tilden  listened 
to  all  the  appeals  that  were  made  to  him,  with  all  his  wealth, 
he  would  have  been  himself  a  beggar  at  the  end  of  any  week. 
To  comprehend  the  nature  and  extent  of  this  species  of 
annoyance,  I  will  give  a  few  specimens  of  such  appeals  as 
were  made  by  post,  and  were  most  readily  disposed  of; 
though  personal  appeals  were  nearly  as  numerous,  and, 
unless  made  by  absolute  strangers,  usually  consumed 
more  time  and  therefore  proved  more  serious  interrup 
tions.  The  names  and  addresses  of  the  writers  are  of 
course  suppressed. 

A  Kentuckian,  who,  though  blessed  with  a  large  family, 
thought  he  was  poor,  wrote  : 

"  I  am  a  poor  man  with  a  large  family  and  am  not  able 
to  bring  them  up  as  I  would  like.  My  three  youngest  are 
girls  aged  respectively  about  thirteen  (13),  ten  (10),  and 
eight  (8)  years  old  ;  and  I  am  anxious  that  they  be  decently 
brought  up  and  respectably  educated.  How  would  you 
like  to  take  charge  of  the  education  and  rearing  ?  and  if  you 
should  be  so  disposed,  I  will  give  you  full  charge  of  them. 
.  I  know  this  proposition  sounds  cruel  and  un- 
parental,  but,  sir,  it  is  my  overpowering  anxiety  about 


TRIALS    OF  A    MILLIONAIRE  147 

them  and  their  future  that  induces   me   thus   to  write   to 
you."     .     .     . 

One  of  the  F.  F.  V's  wrote  : 

"  HONORED  SIR  :  In  these  times  of  unusual  exigency 
unusual  expediency  suggests  itself,  and  the  train  runs  not 
with  the  extremity.  Your  own  high  and  unquestionable 
position  is  such  as  to  bear  the  light  of  a  mid-day  sun,  but 
the  same  elevation  weakens,  sometimes,  your  best  purposes 
by  exposing  to  your  adversary  the  very  movement  made 
with  the  best  intent.  To  meet  this  emergency,  do  you  not 
want  a  secret  emissary  who  can  go  from  point  to  point  at 
a  moment's  notice  to  convey  and  secure  information,  —  one 
who  can  accomplish  diplomatic  interviews  without  being 
suspected  as  your  representative,  and  who  can  contrive 
movements  without  their  being  heralded  to  the  reading  and 
gossiping  world?  I  am  a  woman  old  enough  to  be  dis 
creet,  ugly  enough  not  to  be  noticed,  intelligent  enough 
to  sift,  compare,  and  reason,  wit  enough  to  evade,  wise 
enough  to  be  silent,  and  ready  enough  to  report,  and  if 
you  can  or  will  employ  me  in  this  official  capacity,  you  will 
find  IRQ  faithful,  trustworthy,  and  efficient.  I  can  give  you 
the  best  reference  in  the  city  and  in  any  part  of  the  country, 
especially  in  the  South.  I  am  a  Southern-born  woman, 
familiar  with  all  Southern  influences,  especially  acquainted 
with  carpet-bag  rule,  having  been  a  victim  of  their  oppres 
sion  in  taxation.  I  am  personally  acquainted  with  politi 
cians  of  both  parties ;  and,  having  the  entrance  to  all 
circles,  I  have  an  advantage  not  usual.  I  have  lived  in  a 
political  atmosphere  all  my  life,  but  have  now  no  family 
ties  to  restrict  my  movements,  or  to  give  my  confidence. 
My  large  landed  estate  in  the  South  is  now  almost  worth 
less  ruins,  owing  to  the  working  of  the  new  regime ;  con 
sequently  I  would  seek  employment  of  a  remunerative  kind, 
— not  extravagantly  so,  but  sufficient  to  my  simple  needs. 
The  employment  I  suggest  would  be  congenial  to  my  taste ; 
and  in  peace  or  war  I  am  sure  that  I  can  be  useful.  The 
times  are  portentous  of  discord  ;  and  if  strife  should  prevail, 
such  service  as  I  could  render  I  know  will  be  in  demand. 
If  you  will  entertain  the  proposition,  I  will  call  to  see  you 
at  any  time.  The  very  proposition  is  a  secret  with  my 'self \ 


148  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

and  I  hope  you  will  also  respect  it  in  any  event.     I  only 
purpose  to  be  in  town  a  day  or  two." 

A  widow  from  Illinois,  with  four  children,  two  boys  and 
two  girls,  wrote : 

"I  cannot  keep  my  children  in  school  and  give  them 
food  and  clothing;  therefore  I  write.  I  beg  you  to 
adopt  one  of  my  fatherless  children,  a  boy  thirteen  years 
of  age,  the  oldest  boy,  change  his  name  to  Samuel  J. 
Tilden,  place  him  in  one  of  the  best  schools,  watch  his 
progress  in  his  studies,  and  your  generosity  shall  be  re 
membered  for  years  and  years.  Please  write  me  when  you 
can  come  or  send  to  this  city  for  the  boy." 

A  hoosier  from  Indiana  wrote  : 

"  .  .  .  If  you  will  send  me  some  money  ill  help  you 
along  with  a  grate  many  more  votes  as  there  is  a  grate 
maney  around  here  that  will  sell  there  votes  fore  anything 
then  if  you  send;  Express  to  Brownsville  Union  Co. 
Indiana." 

Another  hoosier,  who  may  be  presumed  to  have  passed 
the  early  part  of  his  life  in  the  land  o'  cakes,  wrote  : 

"  i  have  written  you  three  letters  and  i  think  you  election 
is  very  dootful  in  the  Western  States  i  have  traveled  threw 
indiana  illinois,  niasura,  iway  cansas  peter  cooper  and 
hayes  and  you  name  is  scarcely  mentien  and  you  haf  to  do 
something  soon  or  you  air  beet  i  can  sell  you  twenty  eighty 
hondred  votse  for  eight  hundred  dolars  myself  if  you  air 
willen  to  hep  you  self  i  Will  hep  you  i  have  pledge  myself 
to  the  people  that  i  Woold  give  four  hundred  dolars  por- 
vided  you  would  give  me  four  hondred  dolars  i  think  that 
is  the  best  i  cando  for  you  now  jus  send  me  the  for  hun 
dred  dollars  if  you  think  best  to  do  so  and  if  you  send  it  i 
Will  use  it  fur  your  lection,  if  you  send  it  you  had  better 
send  it  in  a  register  letter  they  air  all  watching  me  at  the 
expres  ofis  and  Peter  Cooper  friends  has  ofered  me  a  thou 
sand  dolars  to  throw  my  influence  to  him  and  I  wouldent 
noy  axsept  it." 


TRIALS    OF   A    MILLIONAIRE  149 

A  man  who  was  not  at  all  proud  wrote  from  Yankee- 
town  : 

"  As  you  are  a  man  that  goes  in  the  best  and  highest  of 
society  you  must  have  a  great  many  old  clothes  that  is 
good  but  out  of  fashion  and  you  cant  ware  them  in  High 
Society,  i  wish  that  you  would  send  them  to  me  as  im 
have  a  hard  time  to  git  along  and  winter  is  adrawing  neare 
.  all  the  way  that  i  can  pay  you  is  at  the  November 
election  that  is  the  ticket  i  have  voted  the  last  20  years." 

An  assiduous  member  of  a  Tilden  and  Hendricks  club 
wrote : 

"  I  have  been  out  every  night  and  I  am  out  of  work  and 
cannot  get  any.  my  shoes  are  all  worn  out  carrying  the 
Tilden  banner  and  I  cannot  carry  it  any  longer  unless  you 
will  send  me  a  new  pair." 

A  Kentuckian  who  adds  Rev.  to  his  name,  but  whose 
early  education  had  hardly  been  what  it  should  have  been 
for  one  of  his  profession,  wrote : 

"  As  i  antisipate  a  Short  tower  through  the  mountains  of 
Ky  and  should  like  to  have  from  five  to  seven  hundred 
dollars  more  than  i  have  i  will  therefore  ask  you  to  send 
it  to  me  forthwith  By  adams  express  and  if  i  dont  make  a 
show  of  the  same  i  will  double  the  same  five  times,  if 
convenient  Send  Silver  fore  it  looks  Quite  pleasant  all  is 
Rite  here,  you  shall  hear  from  me  Soon  after  the  elec 
tion,  your.  O.B.T." 

A  Pennsylvania!!  who  was  "  anxious  to  free  our  govern 
ment  from  a  mass  of  corruption,"  and  "  is  foreman  of  a 
factory  of  37  men  of  which  11  are  Republicans,"  wrote  : 

"I  am  prepared  to  buy  their  votes  at  $5.  each.  If  you 
can  remit  me  the  required  amount  my  influence  is  at  your 
command  and  the  rights  of  our  country." 

A  Jersey  patriot  of  a  frugal  mind,  but  trusting  he  was 
honest,  and  who  believed  in  fighting  fire  with  fire,  knew 


150  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"  of  over  one  hundred  persons  in  Trenton  who  will  vote  for 
Hays  because  they  will  get  1  dollar  a  piece  for  doing  so. 
there  never  was  a  time  when  such  a  little  money  could  get 
so  many  votes.  I  am  a  poor  man,  yet  I  trust  I  am  honest, 
yet,  I  cannot  see  ware  it  is  wrong  to  give  a  man  a  dollar 
to  vote  for  the  one  he  wishes  to  get  in  Avhen  if  he  dose  not 
do  so,  the  other  party  will  give  him  the  money  and  get 
his  vote." 

"  A  friend  and  a  brother  "  of  the  negro  wrote  : 

"  Mr.  TILDEN  : 

"SiR :  I  wish  you  to  send  mez  as  much  as  $5.  to  Buye 
Whiskey  to  get  all  the  colored  votes  I  can  for  you." 

A  friend  of  the  laboring  man  from  New  York  writes  that 
he  "  is  president  of  a  secret  society  which  cast  more  than 
13,000  votes  in  1874,  and  almost  17,000  in  1875."  He  re 
bukes  Mr.  Tilden  for  not  having  responded  to  his  applica 
tion  for  $2,395.20  to  save  himself  and  party  from  defeat. 

"Our  votes,"  he  says,  "  will  be  cast  in  view  of  resulting 
benefits  to  labor  and  to  securing  legislation  in  that  direction 
rather  than  from  the  ordinary  motives  of  party  men.  If  in 
the  end  you  and  the  party  which  has  put  up  your  nomina 
tion  are  defeated  by  us,  you  must  remember  that  the  work 
was  entirely  your  own,  and  that  we  gave  you  a  fair  oppor 
tunity  to  have  avoided  that  result." 

A  patriot  from  Minnesota  wrote  : 

"  I  feel  very  confident  that  with  $10,000  I  can  get  seven 
thousand  votes." 

Another  patriot  from  Ohio  informs  Mr.  Tilden  that  two 
of  the  "  electoral  commissioners  "  are  relations  of  his,  one  a 
school-mate,  and  all  three  Republicans ;  that  he  asked  them 
privately  what  they  would  take  to  throw  their  influence  for 
Mr.  Tilden ;  that  they  answered  him  confidentially  if  he 
would  give  them  $5,000  each  they  would  give  their  vote  all 
the  time  for  his  man.  Mr. proposes  to  give  $5,000 


TRIALS    OF   A    MILLIONAIRE  151 

out  of  his  own  pocket  if  Mr.  Tilden  would  give  the  other 
$10,000  in  greenbacks,  not  in  checks,  as  they  might  create 
suspicion. 

An  editor  writes  that  he  publishes  a  religious  paper  in 
Virginia,  which  is  burdened  with  a  debt  of  $500.  "  It 
did  all  a  religious  paper  could  do  to  promote  Mr.  Tilden's 
election." 

A  gentleman  who  had  spent  $100  on  the  election  asks 
Mr.  Tilden  "to  palliate  his  temporary  difficulties  with  a 
remittance,  which  he  promises  to  return  in  six  months." 

A  Xew  Yorker  asks  for  the  loan  of  some  money  with 
which  to  purchase  bees  from  Brazil. 

A  modest  mamma  from  Missouri  named  her  third  daugh 
ter,  who  was  born  in  1870,  Maggie  Tilden  .  "You 

would  admire  her,"  she  writes  ;  "she  is  an  interesting  child 
and  in  possession  of  more  than  ordinary  talent ;  and  in  order 
to  cultivate  her  mind,  I  make  a  special  request  of  you,  and 
that  is  to  make  her  a  present.  You  will  confer  a  very  great 
favor  upon  our  little  daughter.  You  are  in  possession  of 
millions  of  dollars  and  would  never  miss,  say,  $10,000 ;  in 
fact  any  sum  you  may  wish  to  give.  You  are  a  bachelor 
and  should  render  assistance." 

Another  Missourian,  a  confederate,  but  with  more  zeal 
than  discretion,  says  he  met  with  a  man  in  Douglass  county 
who  claimed  that  Hayes  was  elected  President.  The  con 
federate  claimed  that  Tilden  was  elected.  The  Douglass 
county  man  said,  "  The  Republicans  have  had  the  reins  of 
govt.  too  long  in  their  hands  to  give  it  up  to  a  Rebel 
like  you.  So,"  adds  the  confederate,  "Igiv  him  a  billet 
of  wood ;  he  soon  recovered  and  come  at  me  for  a  tussel 
and  the  result  was  I  was  left  a  blind  man  forever. 

"You  can  see  from  my  picture  which  I  send  you  in  this 
letter,  the  condition  my  eyes  are  in.  If  you  are  willing  to 
help  me  I  would  be  very  glad." 

His  statements  were  fortified  by  four  certificates  as  to 
their  truth,  all  apparently  in  the  same  handwriting. 


152  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

A  man  from  Alabama,  of  literary  aspirations,  desires  to 
dramatize  "  The  Great  Crime  "  by  which  Mr.  Tilden  was 
defrauded  of  the  presidency,  and  asks  him  "  if  not  too 
inconvenient"  to  furnish  a  history  of  the  whole  aifair,  as 
well  as  the  names  of  the  conspirators,  for  that  purpose. 

A  political  enthusiast  wrote,  "Fifty  thousand  dollars  will 
carry  the  State  of  New  York  for  Mr.  Tilden,"  and  asks  to 
have  the  money  sent  "  with  a  wrapper  round  it  as  you  would 
a  newspaper,  roll  up  the  ends." 

A  New  Yorker,  who  admired  a  cheerful  giver,  wrote  : 

"  If  you  would  give  of  the  millions  of  which  God  has  made 
you  the  Steward,  but  two  to  the  cause,  New  York  and  Vic 
tory  would  be  ours,  and  Right  would  prevail.  .  .  .  I  have  a 
right  I  repeat  to  ask  this  when  one  poor  man  draws  $56.  his 
all  from  the  Savings  Bank  and  sends  it ;  when  one  family 
are  going  without  tea  and  coffee  for  a  year,  to  help  that 
much  to  the  right ;  when  my  sister  and  I  give  what  was  to 
have  given  us  a  long  dreamed  of  pleasure-trip ;  when  my 
brothers  go  shabby  and  are  pinched  and  poor  but  give  far 
more  than  they  can  spare  to  help  Hancock.  I  know  you 
will  give  most  freely  but  I  want  you  to  give  as  we  poor 
people  have,  so  as  it  will  hurt.  Can  you  see  those  pitiful 
sums  published  and  still  keep  back  that  hand  that  is  grow 
ing  old  and  can  hold  what  the  Lord  has  given  it  bit  a  few 
years  longer." 

A  Missourian  damsel,  whose  moral  development  seemed 
to  have  hardly  kept  pace  with  her  physical,  having  received 
a  circular  in  regard  to  the  Royal  Havanna  lottery,  invites 
Mr.  Tilden  to  procure  one  of  the  circulars,  and  see  if  there 
would  be  any  chance  for  one  of  the  prizes,  and  if  so  to  se 
lect  for  her  "  a  ticket  that  will  be  sure  to  draw  a  prize,"  and 
send  it  to  her,  and  she  will  send  him  the  money.  She 
kindly  adds :  "  If  I  draw  a  good  prize  they  can  use  my 
name.  It  might  be,  if  they  knew  my  condition  that  they 
would  sell  you  a  ticket  that  they  knew  would  draw  a  good 
prize." 

Another  Missourian  informs  Mr.  Tilden  that  his  "  letter 


TRIALS    OF  A    MILLIONAIRE  153 

declining  a  renomination  has  been  read  by  thousands  in  the 
West  with  sorrow,"  and  that  he  has  several  valuable  inven 
tions  in  which  he  will  give  Mr.  Tilden  a  half  interest  if  he 
will  aid  him  in  putting  them  on  the  market. 

A  New  Yorker  "  knows  how  the  third  party  in  the  field 
could  be  withdrawn,  and  will  meet  Mr.  T.'s  agent  to  make 
a  satisfactory  arrangement." 

Another  New  Yorker  asks  Mr.  Tilden  to  return  to  him 
the  axe  which  he  presented  to  him  in  the  canvass  of  '76,  that 
he  might  present  it  to  General  Hancock,  as  Mr.  Tilden  had 
retired  to  private  life.  The  writer  of  this  letter  was  notified 
that  he  could  have  the  axe  by  calling  for  it. 

"  Joanne  of  Arc  "  sends  Mr.  Tilden  a  magic  ring.  "  Put  it 
on  your  finger  immediately,  and  do  not  remove  it.  It  con 
veys  to  you  a  healing  power  from  God.  When  taking  it 
from  my  finger  I  saw  a  bright  star  over  it." 

A  West  Virginia  lady  desires  to  open  an  acquaintance  by 
correspondence  ;  has  three  relatives  in  Congress,  and  "  will 
patiently  look  forward  with  expectations  of  receiving  a 
little  <  billet-doux.'" 

M.  M.,  of  Ohio,  informs  Mr.  Tilden  that  with  $1,500  or 
$2,000  he  can  secure  the  votes  of  3,000  miners  in  his 
district. 

A  Republican  from  Ohio,  having  lost  $1,000  through  the 
failure  of  a  friend,  will  give  Mr.  Tilden  his  influence  this 
fall  if  he  will  accommodate  him  with  a  loan  of  $1,000. 

Another  Ohioan  will  work  for  Mr.  Tilden  if  he  will  give 
him  a  land  warrant  for  sixty  acres  of  land. 

A  lumber  man  from  Michigan  wrote  : 

w  SIR,  If  you  want  to  doo  anney  thing  in  the  pine  woods 
of  Michigan  you  will  have  to  send  some  money.  This 
stump  specking  dos  for  some  folks  but  not  for  the  Boys  in 
the  whoods.  They  whant  a  more  excitement  then  that.  I 
have  no  money  and  we  air  all  poor  but  we  have  a  vote  just 
the  same.  I  can  do  more  on  the  day  of  election  with  some 
monney  then  all  the  stumping  your  great  men  can  do  in  a 
year." 


154  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

Another  man  from  Michigan  informed  Mr.  Tilden  that 
if  he  will  be  so  kind  as  to  give  him  a  deed  of  a  quarter 
section  of  land  in  the  North-west  he  will  vote  for  him. 
"  I  have  always  voted  the  Demicratic  ticket ;  now,  if  you 
can't  give  me  that  lot,  I  cant  vote  for  you ;  but  if  you  will 
give  me  the  lot  I  will  send  you  a  certificate  from  the  Co. 
Clerk  that  I  cast  my  vote  for  you." 

A  Tennesseean  informs  Mr.  Tilden  that  he  is  working 
hard  for  his  election  and  would  be  pleased  to  receive  a  suit 
of  clothes  as  a  birthday  present. 

A  friend  of  Senator  Voorhees,  of  Indiana,  informs  Mr. 
Tilden  that  the  certainty  of  his  being  President  of  the 
United  States  is  greatly  due  to  the  untiring  determination 
of  his  friends,  and  therefore  he  says,  "  As  I  am  very  fond  of 
a  good  horse  and  one  that  can  trot  some,  I  ask  you  to  say 
you  will  present  me  with  one  of  that  kind  after  you  are 
declared  elected.  To-morrow  we  make  a  grand  rally  to 
hear  Hon.  Daniel  Voorhees." 

U.  U.,  of  Missouri,  says  :  "  I  have  bet  everything  I  have 
in  this  world  on  your  being  elected.  Beat  thini  if  you  can 
is  my  best  wishes." 

A  New  Yorker  wrote  : 


"  MR.  TILDEN,  DEAR  SIR,  I  thought  I  would  Rite  to  you 
to  let  you  know  How  we  are  situated.  On  this  Canipain 
we  have  used  up  all  our  money  in  working  for  you  and  we 
Have  mad  promises  that  we  can't  foolfil  on  this  campaign 
and  hope  that  you  Will  Oblige  us  by  sending  us  some 
money  We  want  to  use  some  on  Musick  Band  and  also  we 
have  promised  six  cags  of  Bear  after  the  closing  of  the 
Pols,  allso  other  items  that  we  want  Paid  this  time  also 
We  Have  Never  asked  anything  of  you  before  and  am 
sorry  to  ask  you  know  But  the  way  we  are  fixed  we  cant 
Help  it.  We  are  doing  all  that  Lays  in  Our  Power  for 
you  in  Our  town  we  Have  Brought  over  Three  Hundred 
persons  On  our  side  and  we  can  get  more  by  working  hard 
for  them  and  Our  money  Has  give  out  and  we  Hope  that 
you  will  oblige  us  By  sending  us  some.  This  is  from 


TRIALS    OF   A    MILLIONAIRE  155 

and and  also  we  are  well  known  Through  this  county 

Rocklane 

"  PLease  answer  this  as  soon  as  you  receive  this 

"With  Out  fail" 

A  fire-insurance  agent  wrote  : 

"  TILDEX,  Will  you  please  give  me  your  opinion  as  to 
your  prospects  for  election  ?  this  state  being  pretty  well 
supplied  with  Rads  and  some  of  them  anxious  to  bet  on 
Hayes.  I  want  to  make  some  paupers  among  them  if  there 
is  a  strong  probability  of  your  election.  I  need  some  of 
their  money  in  my  biz.  and  can  get  it,  provided  I  will  put 
up. 

"  Assuring  you  that  I  am  an  ardent  supporter  of  yours, 
hope  you  will  wTrite  me  opinion." 

A  patriot  from  Ohio  informs  Mr.  Tilden  that 

''what  is  needed  now  is  not  the  speaking  to  influence 
public  sentiment,  but  the  almighty  dollar  to  draw  the  mass 
of  voters  with  us. 

"  In  this  free  country  it  is  not  expected  to  carry  the  day, 
per-vim  to  drag  men  to  the  election  house,  but  to  persuade 
their  minds,  and  this  can  be  done  with  them  by  simply  buy 
ing  them.  Send  us  money  to  the  amount  at  least  2, 000  and 
we  will  see  wiiat  we  can  do." 

A  New  York  Republican,  "  but  not  a  bigoted  one,"  in 
forms  Mr.  Tilden  that  he  and  nine  of  his  comrades  had 
always  voted  the  Republican  ticket,  but  this  year,  he 
writes,  "  If  you  think  worth  while  to  buy  our  votes  we 
will  go  Democratic,  —  $50  apiece  is  the  price.  If  you  will 
send  to  my  address  before  election  $500  you  will  receive  in 
return  ten  sound  votes." 

A  laborer  in  Ohio,  who  thought  he  was  worthy  of  his 
hire,  wrote  that : 

"the  lawyers  and  doctors  get  paid  mighty  big  for  mak 
ing  speeches  and  i  think  i  can  make  as  many  votes  as 


156  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

some  of  them  and  get  nothing  for  it  i  think  i  ort  to  have 
something  for  my  work  i  have  worked  every  election  yet 
and  i  never  got  anything  i  think  i  am  working  for  a  good 
cause  and  i  would  like  to  here  from  you  i  think  i  ort  to 
have  something." 

Such  are  types  of  a  class  of  letters  which  reached  Mr. 
Tilden  by  every  mail,  from  his  own  sex  mostly.  The  imag 
inations  of  the  other  sex  seem  to  have  been  equally,  if  not 
more,  inflamed  by  the  report  of  Mr.  Tilden's  great  wealth, 
with  neither  wife  nor  chick  to  help  him  spend  or  enjoy  it. 

Mr.  Tilden  had  never  married.  His  early  associations 
and  delicate  health  seem  to  have  conspired  together  to  ded 
icate  him  to  the  public  service,  which  became  the  most 
constant  and  engrossing  subject  of  his  study  and  of  his 
meditations  from  early  youth  to  the  very  close  of  his  life. 
He  occasionally  laid  himself  open  to  the  suspicion  of  enter 
taining  matrimonial  intentions,  by  the  frequency  of  his 
visits  to  houses  where  the  attractions  were  such  as  to  war 
rant  such  suspicions ;  but  on  the  occasions  of  his  visits  he 
usually  became  so  much  absorbed  in  talking  politics  with 
the  senior  members  of  the  family  that  the  neglected  juniors 
were  apt  to  retire  to  rest  long  before  their  turn  had  come. 
He  cared  less  for  the  society  of  women  than  any  gentleman 
possessed  of  anything  like  corresponding  powers  of  enter 
tainment  I  have  ever  known,  and  he  never  seemed  to  miss 
such  companionship  until  during  the  later  years  of  his  life, 
when  his  infirmities  had  rendered  him  comparatively  help 
less.  His  sister,  Mrs.  Pelton,  presided  over  his  household 
until  her  granddaughter  married,  when  he  provided  them 
with  an  elegant  home  in  New  York  and  an  income  suited 
to  their  needs  and  station.  In  his  sister's  place  he  invited 
two  of  his  maiden  nieces,  daughters  of  his  brother  Henry, 
to  live  with  him,  which  they  continued  to  do  until  his 
death. 

When  Mr.  Tilden  was  nominated  for  the  presidency  he  was 
sixty-two  years  of  age,  —  a  period  of  life  when  bachelors 


TRIALS    OF  A    MILLIONAIRE.  157 

have  generally  abandoned  all  thoughts  of  matrimony.  His 
wealth  and  rank  and  prospects,  however,  caused  him  to  be 
regarded  by  the  other  sex  more  than  ever  in  the  lisrht  of 

o  *J  ~ 

a  matrimonial  speculation.  There  were  multitudes  of  the 
daughters  of  Eve  who  would  cheerfully  and,  alas !  in 
many  instances  might  advantageously  have  accepted  the 
hand  and  shared  the  society  of  a  man  of  his  wealth  and 
position,  to  whatever  extent  he  might  be  weighed  down  by 
age  or  infirmity.  At  least  Tilden  could  hardly  have  failed 
to  reach  this  conclusion.  Nor  will  the  reader  be  surprised 
if  he  did,  when  he  reads  a  few  of  the  letters  which  I  propose 
to  cite  as  specimens  of  the  weapons  by  which  his  domestic 
solitude  was  assailed. 

A  widow  from  Michigan  wrote  : 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  I  trust  you  will  excuse  me  for  writing  to 
you,  a  stranger,  but  having  been  so  greatly  interested  in 
your  success  a  few  years  ago,  I  have  so  often  thought  of 
you  since,  that  to  me  you  seem  more  like  a  dear  friend  and 
acquaintance,  though  I  have  never  had  the  pleasure  of  meet 
ing  you.  I  wish  you  (not  your  secretary)  would  write  to 
me  just  once  in  answer  to  this  request.  I  should  like  to 
make  my  home  in  New  York  or  near  there,  in  the  capacity 
of  book-keeper  or  private  secretary,  where,  if  agreeable  to 
my  employer,  I  could  remain  several  years,  having  little 
ones  to  educate.  I  cannot  marry  again,  but  must  work  if  I 
can.  My  little  boy  is  a  bright  little  fellow  of  nine  years. 
I  wish  him  to  enjoy  the  advantages  of  good  schools  and 
training.  That  he  may  have  these  with  kind  treatment,  I 
have  decided  to  remain  single  the  rest  of  my  life,  — though 
now  but  twenty-nine,  — that  I  may  earn  the  means  to  accom 
plish  this  purpose.  Now  that  I  have  confided  to  you  my 
greatest  wish,  will  you  do  this  for  me?  If  not  in  need  of 
such  services  yourself,  will  you  tell  me  of  some  one  that  is, 
or  give  me  directions  that  will  enable  me  to  obtain  per 
manent  work  of  this  kind  in  a  place  suitable  for  a  lady? 
I  cannot  give  references  for  competency,  having  never 
worked,  but  think  I  can  prove  it  by  trying.  Can  give  best 
of  reference  in  regards  to  respectability  and  honesty,  and  I 
will  try  to  improve  in  writing." 


158  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

A  Virginian  writes : 

"I  see  from  the  ' Cincinnati  Gazette  '  you  are  a  bachelor 
and  one  most  anxious  to  marry,  and  will  give  to  your  wife 
the  amount  of  $500  in  money  per  week.  I  write,  not  to 
make  a  proposition  of  marriage,  but  one  which  will  no 
doubt  meet  with  much  greater  favor  in  your  kind  and 
generous  heart ;  which,  if  acceded  to,  will  procure  for  you 
the  love,  not  only  of  all  the  single  ladies,  but  the  love  of  all 
the  married  ladies  as  well,  of congregation." 

The  way  all  this  was  to  be  accomplished  was  to  give  five 
or  six  hundred  dollars  of  his  pin-money  to  pay  off  the  debts 
of  the  church.  The  writer  adds  : 

"  If  you  should  visit 1  promise  you  shall  see  many 

of  its  fair  beauties.  You  might  gain  the  affection  of  some 
beauty  for  a  wife,  and  you  know  the  Virginia  girls  make 
noted  wives." 

A  damsel  from  California  writes,  on  a  sheet  illustrated 
with  the  portrait  of  a  dove  carrying  a  billet-doux  in  its 
mouth : 

"  MY  DEAR  SIR  :  Allthough  in  the  past  the  pleasure  and 
honor  of  your  personal  acquaintance  have  been  denied  to 
Mama  and  I,  yet  we  have  heard  of  your  noble  qualities  of 
mind  and  heart,  and  I  can  assure  you,  Mr.  Tilden,  the  only 
wish  of  my  heart  is  to  see  you.  I  would  highly  appreciate 
your  visit  and  warmly  Thank  you  for  it.  The  magnificent 
and  beautiful  residence  which  you  have  erected  and  which 
would  be  an  ornament  to  any  city  in  the  w^orld,  so  success 
fully  brought  to  completion  by  means  the  most  commenda 
ble,  stand  forth  as  enduring  energy  and  indefatigable  zeal, 
will  perpetuate  your  memory  and  transmit  your  name  to 
generations  to  come. 

"Mr.  Tilden,  in  regard  to  my  reputation  Avould  respect 
fully  refer  you  to  Bishop ,  Ex-Governor ,  Senator 

— .  Mr.  Tilden,  I  would  dearly  love  to  be  able  to  see 
you,  though  distance  separated  us ;  yet  in  my  prayers  I 
always  think  of  you.  Accept  these  slight  expressions  of 
regard,  and  be  assured  of  our  good  wishes  and  Prayers  that 


TRIALS    OF   A    MILLIONAIRE  159 

your  years  may  be  many  Peaceful,  and  happy.  I  cannot 
allow  this  Christmas  to  pass  without  wishing  you  a  very 
merry  Christmas  and  many  Happy  New  Years.  Hoping  you 
will  receive  this  with  the  same  intention  that  I  have  in 
tended,  I  shall  feel  grateful  for  any  kindly  consideration 
you  may  be  pleased  to  accord  to  this,  my  letter.  Accept 
this  with  my  highest  regards  and  everlasting  friendship." 

A  young  lady  from  Michigan  pours  forth  her  soul  in 
verse.  Her  communication  was  accompanied  with  the 
photograph  of  a  face  of  rare  beauty. 

" IIox.  SIR: 

"  Inclosed  please  find  a  photograph 
Of  one  who  comes  to  make  you  laugh. 
For  this  is  the  year  accorded  by  law 
For  '  maids '  to  propose  in,  and  '  baches  '  to  jaw. 
Now,  when  the  great  question  rose  over  the  nation 
And  shook  the  stout  hearts  of  the  Lords  of  Creation, 
And  claimed,  in  spite  of  money's  sway, 
The  Democrats  would  gain  the  day, 

"  *  Xo,  no,'  I  cried,  *  it  can't  be  true ; 
For  during  my  life,  one  score  and  two, 
There's  not  been  a  Democrat  president ; 
But  we've  bent  to  Republicans  quite  content.' 
And  when  it  was  said,  '  In  spite  of  pelf 
Cleveland  will  get  it,'  I  said  to  myself, 
*  If  Cleveland  gets  this  fall's  election, 
I'll  propose  to  S.  Tilclen  and  meet  with  rejection.' 

"  Wouldn't  it  be  a  joke  to  the  nation  ? 
Wouldn't  it  cause  a  great  sensation  ? 
When  I  think  of  it,  sir,  I  almost  wish 
I  had  not  set  to  fry  so  big  a  fish. 
It  is  one  thing  to  talk  and  another  to  do, 
And  I  almost  lack  courage  to  carry  it  through. 
I  live  so  much  within  myself, 
That  none  would  believe  it,  except  yourself. 

"  I  only  can  offer  my  heart  and  my  hand. 
A  heart,  none  more  tender  in  the  land. 
A  hand  that  ne'er  lifted  itself  to  do  wrong ; 
But  has  done  all  it  could  to  help  mankind  along. 
Only  these,  yet  a  man  like  yourself 
Would  look  more  to  virtue  than  worldly  pelf. 
I  refer  you  to  any  one  here  you  may  find, 
Who  will  say  aught  about  me,  'cept  which  is  kind. 

"  I  trust  you,  sir,  as  a  Democrat, 
That  you'll  not  take  advantage  of  that ; 


160  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 


But  my  letter  and  picture  never  will  show, 
So  no  one  but  you  and  I  shall  know. 
Now  ponder  well  and  study  my  face. 
Can  you  not  every  bit  of  my  character  trace  ? 
Would  it  not  be  bliss,  by  your  fireside 
To  claim  its  original  as  your  bride  ? 

"  Sweet  pleasure  to  me  to  be  the  wife 
Of  a  noble  man  in  the  eve  of  his  life, 
All  passions  subdued,  at  peace  with  the  world, 
Obliged  not  to  be  into  politics  hurled. 
Has  not  this  life  seemed  vacant  to  you 
With  no  loving  wife,  and  no  fond  children  too  ? 
O  what  would  you  give,  had  you  only  a  son 
To  bear  your  own  name  when  your  work  here  is  done  ? 
This  world  indeed  is  bleak  and  drear, 
If  we  have  none  to  us  most  dear, 
Whom  we  know  love  us  for  our  very  self, 
And  not  what  we  have  of  paltry  pelf." 

"  I  hold  the  respect  of  all  who  know  me ;  am  a  worthy 
graduate,  and  pride  myself  on  my  good  character;  so, 
though  you  would  not  get  a  wealthy  bride,  you  would  get 
one  who  cares  not  for  the  world,  who  is  not  tainted  witli 
the  vices  of  society,  and  whose  whole  soul  will  be  wrapt  up 
in  the  interests  of  her  husband  and  home.  I  anxiously 
wait  the  issues  of  my  strong  fancy.  Should  you  favor  it, 
let  me  know,  and  I  will  send  my  right  name,  and  any  cre 
dentials  you  desire.  If  you  decline,  I  trust  you  will  send 
back  my  letter  and  picture,  with  your  best  wishes  for  a 
simple  girl." 

A  Pennsylvania  maiden  wrote  : 

"Mr  DEAR  SIR:  I  am  making  a  silk  quilt  (where  is  the 
lady  who  is  not?)  and  write  to  solicit  a  piece  of  your  neck 
tie.  It  matters  not  if  it  is  plain  and  black  (I  fancy  that's 
the  kind  you  wear),  so  it  comes  from  you. 

"  Each  lady  thinks  her  quilt,  like  each  mother  her  baby,  is 
the  prettiest  in  existence.  I  am  no  exception  to  that  rule. 
My  aim  is  to  make  my  quilt  as  rich  in  its  associations  as  I 
am  trying  to  make  it  beautiful  in  design.  This  being  my 
object,  you  will,  I  trust,  excuse  my  request. 

"  I  want  a  piece  of  your  tie,  not  because  you  are  a  million 
aire,  not  because  you  excelled  as  a  corporation  lawyer,  not 
because  you  stand  deservedly  high  as  a  political  leader,  nor 
yet  because  you  were  elected  President  of  these  United 


TRIALS    OF   A    MILLIONAIRE  161 

States,  but  because,  though  a  bachelor,  you  have  always, 
both  in  private  (so  I  am  informed)  and  in  public  utterances, 
paid  woman  the  tribute  she  ought  to  have.  A  man  who 
does  that  has  a  clean  mind. 

"  I  am,  my  dear  sir,  etc." 

A  lady  of  a  certain  age  proffers  marriage,  in  a  letter  with 
a  postage  stamp  enclosed,  presumably  to  encourage  a 
prompt  and  favorable  reply. 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  I  take  the  liberty  of  addressing  you  on  a 
delicate  subject,  though  one  of  the  utmost  importance,  as  it 
engrosses  the  mind  and  attention  of  the  majority  of  the 
human  race,  at  some  time,  either  in  youth,  middle  age,  or 
later  in  life.  This  subject  is  matrimony.  I  think  we  may 
find,  by  observation,  that  marriages  contracted  later  in  life 
are  often  a  source  of  greater  happiness  and  usefulness 
than  those  entered  into  earlier  in  life.  We  know  that  it  is 
the  rule  for  the  ladies  to  wait  for  the  gentlemen  to  make 
the  first  advances,  though  it  is  merely  a  matter  of  custom, 
sanctioned  by  the  usages  of  society.  If  it  were  the  custom 
for  ladies  to  make  the  first  advances,  it  would  seem  just  as 
proper,  and  any  candid  mind  will  concede  that  it  is  per 
fectly  right  and  proper  for  a  true,  virtuous  woman  to  offer 
a  proposition  of  marriage  to  an  honorable  man.  There  are 
many  who  have  done  this.  For  instance,  we  have  the  ex 
ample  of  Queen  Victoria,  who  proposed  to  Prince  Albert, 
and  lived  a  very  happy  matrimonial  life.  I  suppose  it  will 
l>e  necessary  for  me  to  give  you  a  description  of  myself.  I 
have  dark-brown  hair  and  eyes,  dark  complexion,  good 
features,  am  considered  good-looking.  Medium  height, 
good  form —  neither  thin  nor  too  fleshy.  Thirty- three  years 
of  age,  though  look  much  younger;  am  taken  to  be  not 
over  twenty-five.  Am  even-tempered,  warm-hearted,  and 
affectionate.  I  am  a  lady  of  refinement  and  education. 
Am  of  a  good  family,  and  well  connected.  Have  a  sister, 

married  to  a  lawyer  in ,  whose  father  is  one  of  the 

wealthiest   men   in .     Also   have    a   brother  in , 

who  is  also  a  wealthy  man.  I  can  give  the  best  of  refer 
ences  and  letters  of  introduction  from  the  most  respected, 
influential  citizens.  I  have  had  good  offers  of  marriage, 
but  prefer  to  choose  my  own  husband.  The  young  men 

VOL.  II.— 11 


162  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

have  too  many  '  wild  oats '  to  sow,  and  are  apt  to  be  un 
settled.  There  are  exceptions  to  this,  as  well  as  to  every 
other  rule.  Still  I  would  much  rather  marry  an  elderly 
gentleman,  one  who  is  true  and  honorable.  I  am  naturally 
intelligent  and  well-informed,  especially  in  regard  to  politics 
and  business  matters.  As  a  wife,  I  feel  that  I  could  be  a 
great  help  to  a  husband,  by  making  his  interest  my  own,  in 
regard  to  any  thing  or  object  he  most  desired  to  accomplish. 
As  you  are  a  gentleman  in  public  life,  I  have  heard  and  read 
so  much  about  you  that  I  have  almost  felt  acquainted ;  at 
least  have  felt  that  you  were  perfectly  upright  and  honor 
able  ;  a  gentleman  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  and  one  who 
would  be  a  loyal  husband.  I  have  felt  that  I  could  love 
such  a  character  with  a  true  devotion,  so  have  thought  that 
I  would  take  advantage  of  leap  year  by  following  Queen 
Victoria's  example  and  say,  'Will  you  marry  me?'  Now, 
a  housekeeper,  or  relations,  however  desirable,  cannot  fill 
the  place  of  a  wife.  There  is  no  relationship  so  close  or  so 
endearing  as  that  of  wife.  And  in  sickness  and  old  age, 
who  will  care  for  a  husband  so  tenderly  as  a  loving,  de 
voted  wife?  The  Bible  says,  'It  is  not  good  for  man  to  be 
alone,'  and  '  Whoso  findeth  a  wife,  findeth  a  good  thing, 
and  obtaineth  favor  of  the  Lord.'  Now,  in  regard  to  my 
self,  you  do  not  need  to  take  my  word  alone,  but  you 
have  the  privilege  of  becoming  acquainted  with  me,  and  of 
judging  for  yourself.  As  I  wish  to  visit  my  sister  in 
Chicago  you  can  meet  me  there  if  you  choose,  or  any  other 
place  you  might  name.  And  now  I  am  perfectly  sincere 
and  in  earnest  about  this  matter.  I  submit  this  matter  to 
you  for  your  perusal  and  thoughtful  attention.  Hoping 
my  suit  will  meet  with  favor,  and  a  reply, 

"  I  remain  yours  very  respectfully." 

A  young  lady  from  Indiana  who  weighs  about  one  hun 
dred  and  twenty-five  pounds,  and  is  a  detester  of  dudes, 
wrote : 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  You  are,  I've  no  doubt,  surprised  to  get  a 
letter  from  a  village  in  the  Hoosier  State. 

"  As  it  is  Leap  Year,  and  the  ladies  have  the  privilege  of 
proposing  marriage,  I  have  come  to  you.  Unmaidenly : 
did  I  hear  you  say :  Well,  I  suppose  it  is,  but  when  I  tell 


TRIALS    OF   A    MILLIONAIRE  163 

you  it  is  unsophisticated  love  that  prompts  me  to  write  this 
I  hope  for  your  forgiveness. 

"  Since  quite  a  child  I  have  been  a  great  admirer  of  yours. 
During  the  time  that  you  were  candidate  for  President  I 
was  very  anxious  that  you  would  be  elected. 

"  I  have  never  seen  you,  but  having  heard  such  glowing 
accounts  of  your  generosity  and  good  worth,  how  can  I 
help  but  admire  you  ?  Please  be  generous  to  me  and  give 
me  a  favorable  reply. 

"I  do  not  want  a  husband  I  cannot  admire  and  be 
proud  of;  if  there  is  any  one  thing  I  do  detest  it  is  a  Dude. 
It  has  always  been  my  ambition  to  marry  some  great  states 
man  or  a  man  of  unusual  intellect  and  culture.  Now,  my 
dear  Mr.  Tilden,  will  you  be  my  husband?  I  assure  you, 
you  will  never  regret  it,  for  I  will  do  everything  in  my 
power  to  make  you  perfectly  happy. 

"  You,  perhaps,  would  like  to  know  who  and  what  I  am. 

My  name  is .  I  weigh  about  about  one  hundred  and 

twenty-five  pounds,  have  dark-blue  eyes,  fair  complexion, 
and  dark-brown  hair.  I  suppose  I  am  a  brunette.  I  do 
not  know  just  exactly  how  tall  I  am,  but  a  little  below  the 
medium  height,  and  was  twenty  years  old  last  March. 
Don't  say  too  young  for  me :  you  know  it  is  better  to  be 
petted  by  a  young  girl,  than  to  be  fussed  at  by  an  old 
woman,  or  worse,  a  society  belle. 

"  If  I  had  a  photograph  of  myself  I  wrould  send  it  to  you, 

but  if  you  get  a  good  profile  of ,  the  actress,  that  will 

do  as  well,  for  every  one  says  I  am  her  perfect  facsimile. 

So  if  you  are  an  admirer  of that  will  be  a  great 

deal  in  my  favor. 

"  My  family  are  highly  respectable.  My  Papa  and  Mama 
are  both  living  and  I  am  an  only  child. 

"  If  you  are  favorably  impressed  with  this  letter  please  let 
me  know  as  soon  as  possible  as  it  is  a  matter  of  great  im 
portance  to  me." 

A  young  lady  from  Missouri  asks  for  his  hand  and 
"pfotos." 

"  MY  DEAR  FRIEND  :  I  send  you  a  few  lines  as  it  affords 
me  pleasure  in  doing  so  and  at  the  same  time  hoping  to 
find  you  enjoying  the  fruits  of  health  and  Happiness  I  am  a 
young  lady  of  twenty-two  summers  and  hearing  so  much 


164  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

talk  about  you  and  to  see  if  it  is  all  true  I  thought  I  would 
write  and  see  if  it  was  as  the  parties  stated  will  you  please 
state  if  you  ever  engaged  yourself  to  some  St.  Louis  Belles 
and  they  refused  you  may  think  it  very  impudent  but  they  tell 
every  body  that  and  if  it  is  not  so  I  would  let  them  know 
about  it.  Dear  Sir,  as  I  am  an  admirer  of  beautiful  pictures 
will  you  please  do  me  the  honor  of  presenting  me  with  one 
of  your  pfotos.  as  I  am  going  to  the  store,  I  will  bring  this 
note  to  the  Post  Office.  Hoping  this  will  reach  you  and 
hoping  to  get  an  answer  I  remain, 

"P.S.     Direct  my  answer  to  the  Post  Office  or  to 

Street,  if  directed  to  the  P.O.  the  full  name  and  if  at 

the  first  name. 

Yours  Respect? 

"Please  answer  as  soon  as  possible. 

"  Were  you  a  flower, 

And  I  a  bee ; 
A  honied  kiss 

I'd  steal  from  thee. 
Fresh  as  the  morn 

Bright  as  the  sun 
To  me  you  are 

The  sweetest  one." 

A  stanch  little  Democrat  from  Georgia  wrote  : 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  If  you  pardon  the  liberty  I  take  in  so 
addressing  you,  you  will  pardon  one  among  many  of  human 
weaknesses. 

"  This  letter  is  from  one  of  the  stanchest  little  democrats 
in  dresses  in  the  land.  A  southern  girl,  who  during  the 
eventful  time  of  your  candidacy  for  the  President,  almost 
r  laid  down  her  arms '  and  dug  for  you.  I  was  but  a  child, 
and  last  year  it  so  happened  that  I  wrote  for  a  juvenile 
paper  here,  in  which  I  mentioned  my  '  wild  and  eventful 
Tilden  days,'  which  were  much  enjoyed. 

"  In  my  own  heart  today  you  are  the  same  dear  Mr. 
Tilden,  who  grew  dearer  to  me,  as  I  grew  older,  and  read 
of  your  noble  qualties. 

"  I  was  disappointed  that  you  did  not  come  south.  Mr. 
Hendricks  came,  and  I  enjoyed  a  most  delightful  chat  with 
him.  He  still  has  a  sacred  spot  in  all  our  hearts.  I  told 


TRIALS    OF   A    MILLIONAIRE  165 

him  my  love  for  Tilden  and  Hendricks  only  ripened  as  they 
grew  older. 

"  Ah  well,  I  doubt  your  patience  with  girls,  especially 
left  handed  ones,  whose  writing  one  cannot  readily  decipher. 

"  My  request  is  simple.  (Please  give  your  Sec'ty  a 
few  moments'  recess)  I  only  ask  you  to  send  me  something 
that  you  consider  trivial,  for  a  souvenir  of  one  I  love  and 
admire  most  dearly.  I  care  not  what  it  may  be,  so  it  be 
longs  to  you.  Enclose  within  a  word  or  two  so  that  I  may 
know  my  missive  is  not  in  vain. 

"  It's  awful  for  a  democrat  to  feel  badly,  and  as  I  am  such 
a  persistent  one,  I  shall  feel  like  poor  Elaine  (?)  if  I  do 
not  hear  from  you.  Trusting  all  reporters  are  at  Salt  Lake 
and  cannot  spy  this 

"Yours  in  all  respect  and  sincerity." 

A  miss  from  Kentucky,  with  a  red  head,  and  weighing 
136  pounds,  wrote : 

"  MR.  TILDEX  :  While  sitting  all  alone  this  evening,  hav 
ing  just  written  to  all  my  friends,  I  concluded  to  write  to 
you.  I  heard  that  you  said  the  first  lady  that  addressed 
you,  you  would  send  her  a  present.  I  hope  the  present 
will  be  a  photograph,  as  I  would  like  to  see  it  very  much. 
Pap  came  from  Virginia,  and  he  has  often  told  me  what  a 
clever  man  you  was.  I  heard  that  you  was  a  batchelor 
and  intended  to  live  a  different  life ;  I  thought  you  nient 
a  married  life ;  I  would  like  to  correspond  with  you  very 
much.  I  have  fair  complexion,  black  eyes,  and  a  red 
head.  I  am  18  years  old,  and  I  weigh  136  pounds. 

"If  my  letter  is  accepted  write  me  a  answer  in  return. 
I  am  tired  of  writing  so  I  will  close  by  saying  give  my  love 
to  your  sister. 

"  Remember  me  when  far  away  and  thinking  of  the  past, 
remember  I  am  a  friend  of  yours  that  will  last  forever. 
Write  soon." 

A  young  lady  from  Illinois  sent  Mr.  Tilden  a  proffer  of 
marriage,  with  a  lock  of  her  hair  and  an  eloquent  analysis 
of  her  charms.  She  handed  her  letter  to  her  younger  sister 
to  enclose  in  an  envelope  and  post.  The  younger  sister, 
thinking  Mr.  Tilden  might  perhaps  prefer  a  younger  bride 


166  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

—  she  was  about  nineteen,  and  the  elder  twenty-three  — 
or  prefer  a  lighter  shade  of  hair,  enclosed  a  lock  of  her  own 
hair,  with  a  note  imparting  her  willingness  to  share  his  bed 
and  board  in  case  her  sister  could  not. 

Another  wrote  that  her  parents  had  been  unfortunate, 
had  lost  their  money,  and  requested  Mr.  Tilden  to  send 
them  $25,000  to  reestablish  themselves. 

Another,  from  North  Carolina,  sent  a  bedspread,  the 
work  of  her  own  hands,  and  warranted  to  last  thirty 
years. 

Another,  from  Michigan,  proposes  he  should  adopt  the 
child  of  a  virtuous  widow  in  the  neighborhood,  and  marry 
her  when  she  is  fifteen  years  old.  Meantime  employing 
the  mother  at  monthly  wages,  who  is  to  die  after  four 
years  of  a  broken  heart. 

Another  had  heard  of  a  generous  wedding  present  Mr. 
Tilden  had  made  one  of  her  cousins,  and  wishes  him  to  buy 
of  her  a  silver  salver  and  goblets  to  match,  which,  if  she 
were  wealthy,  she  would  not  take  $2,000  for,  but  which 
Mr.  Tilden  might  have  for  $1,000.  She  adds: 

"  You  go  out  of  town  every  summer.  It  would  give  me 
pleasure  to  invite  you  to  spend  three  or  four  weeks  or 
more  with  me,  but  I  cannot  afford  it.  If  you  will  come  and 
give  me  a  remuneration  sufficient  to  cover  expenses,  I  will 
do  everything  in  my  power  to  make  your  stay  enjoyable. 
Shall  I  bring  the  silver  salver  to  you  or  send  it  by  express, 
C.O.D.?" 

She  proposes  also  to  invite  several  young  ladies  to  meet 
him  if  he  visits  her,  and  gives  him  a  catalogue  of  their 
charms. 

Mr.  Tilden  rarely  paid  any  attention  to  missives  of  the 
character  here  cited  —  never  unless  he  chanced  to  know 
something  of  the  writer  or  of  her  kindred.  Those  who 
called  in  person  —  as  many  did  who  had  failed  to  get  satis 
factory  responses  to  their  communications  —  were  pretty 


TRIALS    OF   A    MILLIONAIRE  167 

uniformly  disappointed.  The  pleasure  of  receiving  them 
was  generally  given  to  one  of  his  clerks  or  attendants.  He 
had  the  least  possible  taste  for  gallantries  with  any  class ; 
but  he  was  far  too  wise  and  prudent  to  give  to  any  woman 
a  pretext  for  speculating  upon  her  intimacy  with  him. 

The  volume  of  this  kind  of  predatory  correspondence  was 
almost  incredible.  That  he  passed  through  this  epoch  of 
peculiar  temptation  without  provoking  a  breath  of  scandal 
was  a  distinction  which,  unfortunately,  can  be  claimed  for 
few  men  in  public  life  of  equal  eminence,  in  this  or  any 
other  country. 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  cipher  despatches — Tilden's  address  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States  in  regard  to  them  —  His  examination  by  a  congressional  commit 
tee  —  A  calumnious  report  corrected  —  Repudiates  a  reported  arrange 
ment  between  the  Senate  and  House  committees  to  exempt  his  bank 
account  from  examination  —  Letter  to  Senator  Kernan. 

MR.  TILDEN  did  not  realize  all  the  advantages   to   his 

o 

health  from  his  European  trip  that  he  had  hoped  for.  His 
adventures  in  crossing  the  English  channel  undid  much  of 
the  very  considerable  benefit  which  he  seemed  to  have 
derived  from  it.  While  his  general  condition  was  im 
proved,  he  could  not  disguise  from  himself  the  fact  that 
his  tremulousness  was  increasing,  that  his  vocal  organs 
were  losing  their  flexibility,  and  that  his  left  arm  and  hand 
were  less  useful  to  him  than  when  he  left  his  home. 
Though  his  health  had  now  become  a  somewhat  more 
serious  preoccupation  than  formerly,  he  did  not  yet  regard 
it  as  entitled  to  interfere  materially  with  his  future  plans 
or  customary  occupations.  His  renomination  for  the  presi 
dency  in  1880  was  regarded  as  a  matter  of  course  by  both 
parties,  not  only  because  he  was  immeasurably  the  most 
capable  and  popular  candidate  his  party  could  present,  but 
because  he  was  the  only  candidate  through  whose  election 
the  nation  could  properly  resent  the  wrong  it  had  sustained 
at  the  hands  of  the  Electoral  Commission  in  1877.  He  was 
now  regarded  by  the  administration,  not  only  as  a  more 
formidable  candidate  than  in  1876,  but  the  consequences 
of  his  election  now  were  regarded  as  more  alarming  than  in 
1876,  especially  to  those  who  had  participated  in  the  frauds 
which  put  Hayes  into  the  presidency.  He  was  treated, 
therefore,  from  the  very  beginning  of  the  Hayes  adminis 
tration  as  the  one  man  in  the  nation  who,  at  all  hazards, 


THE    CIPHER    DESPATCHES  169 

must  be  destroyed.  This  could  not  be  accomplished  by 
assailing  his  public  life,  his  opinions,  or  his  public  teach 
ings.  That  had  already  been  tried  pretty  faithfully  and 
had  proved  unsuccessful.  A  second  attempt  was  certain 
to  prove  even  less  successful.  There  was  one  course  left. 
The  Potter  investigation  had  satisfied  the  nation  that  Hayes 
had  not  been  elected  by  the  people,  and  that  the  majority 
of  electors  for  him  had  been  secured  by  fraud.  To  this 
there  was  no  longer  any  defence,  not  even  the  benefit  of 
a  doubt.  The  only  thing  to  do  under  those  circumstances 
was,  not  to  attempt  to  justify  the  installation  of  Hayes,  but 
to  persist  in  efforts  to  leave  upon  the  public  mind  an  im 
pression  which  should  stay  there  until  after  the  next  elec 
tion  at  least,  that  Tilden  and  his  party  were  just  as  bad 
as  Hayes  and  his  party,  plus  the  risk  of  Tilden's  being 
overruled  by  his  party,  and  that  the  people  had  nothing  to 
gain  by  a  change  of  dynasty.  As  the  administration  had 
control  of  all  the  judicial,  civil,  and  military  forces  of  the 
government,  and  necessarily  exerted  a  prodigious  influ 
ence  over  all  the  organs  of  public  opinion,  this  did  not 
seem  at  the  time  a  hopeless  endeavor. 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  administration  used 
all  these  forces  with  the  energy  and  recklessness  of  despair. 

I  am  aware  that  this  is  a  grave  allegation,  —  quite  too 
grave  to  rest  upon  the  unsupported  dictum  of  any  individ 
ual.  I  do  not  propose  to  leave  it  thus  unsupported,  but  to 
produce  such  evidence  as  will,  I  think,  bear  conviction  to 
any  unprejudiced  reader,  that  during  the  whole  four  years 
of  Hayes'  administration,  and  regardless  of  Mr.  Tilden's 
age,  his  physical  infirmities,  his  priceless  public  services, 
and  the  place  which  he  occupied  in  the  hearts  of  his  coun 
trymen,  he  was  pursued  by  the  agents  of  that  administra 
tion  with  a  cruelty,  a  vindictiveness,  an  insensibility  to  all 
the  promptings  of  Christian  charity,  which  men  are  rarely 
accustomed  to  exhibit  except  in  their  dealing  with  wild 
beasts. 


170  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TIL  DEN 

Early  in  the  month  of  October  of  1878  a  series  of  tele 
graphic  despatches  in  cipher,  purporting  to  have  been 
addressed  to  well-known  partisans  of  Mr.  Tilden  during 
the  electoral  crisis  of  November  and  December,  1876,  ap 
peared  with  translations  in  the  "New  York  Tribune." 
These  despatches  conveyed  the  impression  that  persons 
holding  more  or  less  familiar,  not  to  say  confidential,  re 
lations  with  Mr.  Tilden  had  been  entertaining  propositions 
for  the  purchase  of  the  electoral  vote  of  one  or  more 
of  the  contested  States.  The  fact  that  the  votes  of  many 
of  the  electors  were  notoriously  in  the  market  at  prices 
which  would  scarcely  have  been  a  month's  income  to  Mr. 
Tilden,  and  that  he  needed  but  a  single  one  of  them  to 
secure  the  presidency,  helped  to  give  currency  to  this 
abominable  suspicion,  which  received  additional  aliment 
from  the  appearance  of  the  name  of  his  sister's  son,  who 
with  his  wife  and  child  was  a  guest  with  her  in  Tilden's 
house  at  the  time,  among  the  alleged  negotiators. 

To  show  the  motive  which  animated  the  parties  through 
whose  agency  these  despatches  —  legally  as  well  as  morally, 
in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  confidential  —  came  to  be 
public  property,  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  about  two  years 
and  trace  their  history  from  the  time  their  hallowed  privacy 
was  first  violated,  until  they  were  spread  out  in  the  columns 
of  an  intensely  partisan  journal. 

On  the  23d  and  24th  of  January,  1877,  certain  tele 
graphic  despatches  relating  to  the  election  in  Louisiana 
were  delivered  to  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Representa 
tives,  of  which  Mr.  Morrison,  a  Democrat,  was  chairman, 
and  certain  other  telegraphic  despatches  relating  to  the 
election  in  Oregon  were  delivered  to  a  committee  of  the 
Senate,  of  which  Mr.  Morton,  a  Republican,  was  chairman. 

Pursuant  to  the  direction  of  Mr.  Sargent,  chairman  of  the 
sub-committee  of  the  Morton  committee,  on  the  25th  day 
of  January,  about  thirty  thousand  telegraphic  despatches, 
purporting  to  be  all  the  residue  of  the  despatches  relating 


THE    CIPHER    DESPATCHES  171 

to  the  election  in  the  possession  of  the  Western  Union  Tele 
graph  Company,  were  delivered  to  Mr.  Burbank,  a  brother- 
in-law  of  Mr.  Morton,  and  also  the  clerk  of  his  committee, 
or  to  his  temporary  substitute. 

Mr.  Orton,  the  president  of  the  Western  Union  Company, 
whom  Mr.  Tilden  did  not  hesitate  to  characterize  as  an  un 
scrupulous  Republican  partisan,  had  previously  permitted 
his  party  friends  to  withdraw  some  of  the  despatches,  and 
appears  to  have  facilitated  the  surrender  of  the  rest  to  the 
control  of  the  chairman  of  the  Republican  senatorial  com 
mittee,  thereby  practically  excluding  everybody  else  from 
the  privilege  of  inspecting  them.  The  particular  de 
spatches,  sent  to  the  Morrison  committee,  were  returned. 
The  other  despatches  were  retained  by  the  officers  of  the 
Morton  committee  until  some  time  after  the  inauguration  of 
Mr.  Hayes,  and  were  then,  except  such  as  in  the  meantime 
had  been  abstracted,  returned  to  the  telegraph  company, 
and  afterwards  burned  by  its  order. 

Some  of  the  despatches  which  had  been  abstracted  were, 
more  than  a  year  afterwards,  in  the  possession  of  one 
George  Edward  Bullock,  of  Indiana,  who  had  been  a  mes 
senger  of  the  senatorial  committee,  and  was  a  protege  of 
its  chairman,  Mr.  Morton.  This  Mr.  Bullock  obtained 
from  Mr.  Hayes  the  appointment  of  consul  at  Cologne, 
upon  the  recommendation,  among  others,  of  Thomas  J. 
Brady,  of  Indiana,  the  Second  Assistant  Postmaster-Gen 
eral,  afterwards  so  notorious  as  the  head  of  the  fraudulent 
Star  Route  ring.  Upon  the  eve  of  his  departure,  and  after 
the  appointment  by  the  House  of  Representatives  of  a  com 
mittee  of  investigation  into  the  election  frauds  in  Louisiana 
and  Florida,  of  which  Mr.  Clarkson  N.  Potter  was  chairman, 
Mr.  Bullock  passed  over  to  Mr.  Brady  —  who,  while 
Second  Assistant  Postmaster-General,  had,  with  three 
special  agents  of  the  Post  Office  Department,  attended  the 
canvass  in  Florida,  and  must  have  been  acquainted  with 
everything  done  there  —  such  of  the  abstracted  despatches 


172  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDE N 

as  had  not  been  destroyed,  and  such  others  as  they  did  not 
prefer  to  suppress. 

The  facts  developed  subsequently  to  the  inauguration  of 
Mr.  Hayes  —  viz.  :  1st,  The  acknowledgment  by  the  ad 
ministration  of  Mr.  Hayes  that  the  Democratic  State  officers 
in  Louisiana,  Florida,  and  South  Carolina  had  been  legally 
elected,  although  in  the  two  former  States  they  received 
fewer  votes  than  were  given  to  the  electoral  ticket  of  Tilden 
and  Hendricks ;  2d,  The  appointment  by  Mr.  Hayes,  to 
most  important  offices,  of  the  members  of  the  Returning 
Boards  of  Louisiana  and  Florida,  and  of  all  the  persons  who 
had  been  actors  and  instruments  in  the  frauds  perpetrated 
by  those  boards,  including  the  two  electors  whose  names 
were  forged  in  the  corrected  electoral  votes  of  Louisiana, 
and  the  persons  who  were  privy  to  those  forgeries  —  led  to 
a  new  investigation  by  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  of  which  Mr.  Clarkson  N.  Potter,  of  New  York, 
was  chairman. 

After  this  committee  had  been  some  six  months  pursu 
ing  its  investigation,  and  had  developed  facts  which  carried 
conviction  to  the  minds  of  fair  men  of  all  parties  as  to  the 
gross  nature  of  the  frauds  which  were  made  the  basis  of 
a  false  count  by  the  Electoral  Commission,  it  was  manifest 
that  something  had  to  be  done,  and  at  once,  to  counteract 
the  moral  effect  upon  the  country  of  these  disclosures.  The 
publication  of  some  and  the  suppression  of  the  rest  of  these 
despatches  proved  to  be  the  only  weapon  within  their  reach, 
and  ignominious  and  lawless  as  they  knew  such  a  violation 
of  private  correspondence  to  be,  they  did  not  shrink  from 
resorting  to  it. 

The  despatches  that  were  published  show,  what  was  con 
firmed  by  the  uncontradicted  testimony  of  the  witnesses 
examined  before  the  Potter  committee,  that  unequivocal 
offers  were  made  by  persons  representing,  with  every 
appearance  of  authority,  the  Returning  Board  of  South 
Carolina,  and  a  majority  of  the  State  canvassers  of  Florida, 


THE    CIPHER    DESPATCHES  173 

to  give  to  the  Democratic  candidates  for  presidential  elect 
ors,  official  certificates  that  they  were  duly  appointed,  for 
money  considerations  to  be  paid  after  the  delivery  of  such 
certificates.  It  was  proved  that  the  agent  of  the  South 
Carolina  Returning  Board,  after  his  offer  was  rejected,  went 
to  the  city  of  New  York  to  repeat  and  press  his  offer,  and 
stayed  there  several  days  in  the  vain  endeavor  to  have  his 
offer  accepted.  It  was  also  proved,  by  unimpeachable  tes 
timony,  that  the  offer  in  behalf  of  certain  of  the  State  can 
vassers  of  Florida  was  repeatedly  made  through  various 
persons.  It  was  further  proved  that  similar  offers  in  behalf 
of  the  Returning  Board  of  Louisiana  were  made  to  Mr. 
Hewitt,  chairman  of  the  National  Democratic  Committee, 
and  to  others.  These  offers  were  prefaced  by  statements 
that,  if  not  accepted,  pending  transactions  with  the  Repub 
licans  would  be  consummated,  although  involving  more 
risk,  because  in  that  case  the  certificates  would  be  contrary 
to  truth. 

All  the  powers  of  the  Hayes  administration,  vainly 
struggling  to  justify  its  own  existence,  and  all  its  means  of 
influencing  the  press,  were  exerted  to  create  a  suspicion 
against  Mr.  Tilden  that  in  some  instance  he  had  entertained 
or  given  countenance,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  such  nego 
tiations. 

These  efforts  totally  failed.  They  were  not  only  desti 
tute  of  the  slightest  foundation,  but  they  were  so  contra 
dicted  by  every  intrinsic  probability  as  to  be  absurd. 
Besides,  they  were  disproved  by  the  concurrent  testimony 
of  every  witness  who  was  examined.  Their  only  pretext 
was,  that  the  South  Carolina  and  Florida  offers  had  been 
communicated  to  one  of  the  nephews  of  Mr.  Tilden,  though 
the  fact  had  been  kept  secret  from  Mr.  Tilden. 

How  far  that  gentleman  was  led  into  this  indiscretion  by 
a  desire  to  learn  the  tactics  of  the  adversary,  or  to  gain 
time  and  means  to  prove  and  to  defeat  their  strategy  when 
it  should  be  completely  developed,  or  to  secure  the  oppor- 


174  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE 'N 

tunity  of  submitting  the  matter  to  members  of  the  Demo 
cratic  National  Committee,  whenever  it  should  assume  a 
definite  form,  does  not  clearly  appear.  It  is  certain,  how 
ever,  that  he  took  no  second  step,  and  all  negotiations  of 
this  character  were  rejected  and  abandoned. 

The  great  controlling  fact  stands,  that  none  of  these 
offers  were  accepted,  nor  their  conditions  complied  with,  by 
any  of  Mr.  Tilden's  friends,  nor  were  the  certificates  of  any 
of  the  Returning  Boards  or  State  canvassers  given  to  the 
Democratic  electors,  to  whom  they  rightfully  belonged. 
On  the  other  hand,  those  certificates  were  all  given  to  the 
Republican  electors,  although  at  the  expense  of  numerous 
frauds  in  the  canvasses,  false  authentications  by  the  gover 
nors  of  three  States,  and  the  forging  of  the  signatures  of 
two  electors. 

Whether  for  these  felonious  transactions  bribes  in  money 
were  paid  according  to  the  offers  which  the  actors  in  them 
professed  to  have  received,  has  not  been  proved.  But  that 
bribes  in  the  more  effectual  form  of  appointments  to  lucra 
tive  offices  were  actually  given  to  all  the  felons  is  now  a 
matter  of  authentic  history.  Mr.  Potter,  in  his  report, 
makes  the  following  sagacious  remarks :  "  If  a  man  be 
bribed  by  a  sum  down,  he  may  lose  it  or  waste  it,  and 
then  the  control  it  gave  over  him  will  be  gone.  But  in  an 
office  which  he  holds  at  the  pleasure  of  the  person  who 
appointed  him,  he  is  under  continuing  control." 

When  the  first  publication  was  made,  about  October  7, 
I  went  to  see  Mr.  Til  den.  I  found  him  very  much  affected. 
He  was  very  indignant  that  the  existence  of  such  compro 
mising  communications  should  have  been  kept  from  him  so 
long.  He  begged  me  to  stay  with  him  a  few  days.  He  was 
more  completely  overcome  than  I  had  ever  seen  him  before. 

He  regarded  these  despatches  as  I  did,  as  the  reply  of 
the  administration  at  Washington  to  the  Potter  invesfea- 

o  o 

tion.  It  having  been  established  by  the  Potter  committee 
to  the  conviction  of  the  whole  nation  that  Hayes  was  not 


THE    CIPHER    DESPATCHES  175 

elected,  the  administration,  instead  of  continuing  the  de 
fence  of  Hayes' title,  determined  to  show,  if  they  could,  that 
Tilden  was  bad  enough  to  have  been  elected  by  the  same 
means  that  Hayes  had  been.  Fortunately,  facts  that  were 
no  longer  in  dispute  protected  Tilden's  character. 

1.  Only  one  vote  was  required  to  elect  Tilden.     It  was 
in  proof  that  the  votes  of  three  States  were  in  the  market, 
and  at  a  price  which  would  have  been  but  a  trifle  to  Tilden. 

2.  Tilden  did  not  get  that  vote.     Nor  was  there  a  parti 
cle  of  evidence  that  any  money  was  ever  furnished  to  any 
one  by  Tilden,  or  any  one  else  on  his  account,  to  secure  the 
one  needed  vote. 

3.  Hayes  needed  all  the  votes  of  three   States.      All 
were  for  sale.     Hayes  got  them  all  and  was  elected,  and 
within   six   months   after   his    inauguration   every   person 
known  to  have  been  concerned  in  securing  or  giving  those 

o  o  O 

notes,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  received  an  office  or 
the  offer  of  one. 

The  position  in  which  Mr.  Tilden  found  himself  placed 
by  the  publication  of  these  telegrams  subjected  him  to  the 
humiliating  necessity,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  of  mak 
ing  a  public  defence  of  his  personal  character.  He  lost  no 
time  in  preparing  and  sending  the  following  statement  to 
the  press : 

"  NEW  YORK,  Oct.  16,  1878. 
"  To  TIIE  EDITOR  OF  THE  '  HERALD  : ' 

"  SIR  :  I  have  read  the  publications  in  the  r  Tribune '  of 
the  8th  instant,  purporting  to  be  translations  of  cipher 
telegrams  relating  to  the  canvass  of  votes  in  Florida  at  the 
presidential  election  of  1876,  and  have  looked  over  those 
printed  in  the  '  Tribune  '  of  this  morning  relating  to  the 
canvass  in  South  Carolina.  I  have  no  knowledge  of  the 
existence  of  these  telegrams,  nor  any  information  about 
them,  except  what  has  been  derived  from  or  since  the  pub 
lications  of  the  r  Tribune.' 

"  So  much  for  these  telegrams  generally.  I  shall  speak 
yet  more  specifically  as  to  some  of  them. 


176  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

"  1.  Those  which  relate  to  an  offer  purporting  to  have 
been  made  in  behalf  of  some  member  of  the  State  Board 
of  Canvassers  of  Florida,  to  give,  for  a  pecuniary  compen 
sation,  certificates  to  the  Democratic  electors  who  had  been 
actually  chosen. 

"None  of  these  telegrams,  nor  any  telegram  communicat 
ing  such  an  offer,  or  answering  such  an  offer,  or  relating  to 
such  an  offer,  was  seen  by  me,  translated  to  me,  or  the 
contents  of  it  in  any  manner  made  known  to  me.  I  had  no 
knowledge  of  the  existence  or  purport  of  any  telegram  re 
lating  to  that  subject.  Nor  did  I  learn  the  fact  that  such 
an  offer  of  the  Florida  certificates  had  been  made  until 
long  after  the  6th  of  December,  at  which  time  the  certifi 
cates  were  delivered  and  the  electoral  votes  cast ;  and  when 
the  information  casually  reached  me,  as  of  a  past  event,  it 
was  accompanied  by  the  statement  that  the  offer  had  been 
rejected. 

"  2.  As  to  the  publications  in  the  '  Tribune  '  of  this  morn 
ing,  purporting  to  be  translations  of  cipher  telegrams  relat 
ing  to  the  canvass  of  votes  in  South  Carolina  in  1876,  which 
I  have  seen  since  I  wrote  the  foregoing,  I  can  speak  of 
them  no  less  definitely  and  positively.  No  one  of  such 
telegrams,  either  in  cipher  or  translated,  was  ever  shown 
to  or  its  contents  made  known  to  me.  No  offer  or  negotia 
tion  in  behalf  of  the  State  canvassers  of  South  Carolina,  or 
of  any  of  them,  or  any  dealing  with  any  of  them  in  respect 
to  the  certificates  to  the  electors,  was  ever  authorized  or 
sanctioned  in  any  manner  by  me  directly  or  through  any 
other  person. 

"  I  will  add  that  no  offer  to  give  the  certificates  of 
any  returning  board  or  State  canvassers  of  any  State  to 
the  Democratic  electors  in  consideration  of  office  or 
money  or  property ;  no  negotiation  of  that  nature  in  behalf 
of  any  member  of  such  board  or  with  any  such  member ; 
no  attempt  to  influence  the  action  of  any  such  member, 
or  to  influence  the  action  of  any  elector  of  President 
and  Vice-President  by  such  motives, — was  ever  enter 
tained,  considered,  or  tolerated  by  me  or  by  anybody 
within  my  influence  by  my  consent,  or  with  my  knowledge 
or  acquiescence.  No  such  contemplated  transaction  could 
at  any  time  have  come  within  the  range  of  my  power  with 
out  that  power  being  instantly  exerted  to  crush  it  out. 

"  A  belief  was  doubtless  current  that  certificates  from  the 


THE    CIPHER    DESPATCHES  177 

State  of  Florida  conforming  to  the  actual  vote  of  the  peo 
ple,  were  in  the  market.  '  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt 
in  the  world,'  said  Mr.  Saltonstall,  who  was  in  Florida  at 
the  time,  in  a  recent  interview  with  the  'Herald'  corre 
spondent,  '  that  that  [Florida]  vote  could  have  been  bought, 
if  Mr.  Tilden  had  been  dishonorable  enough  to  desire  it  done, 
for  a  great  deal  less  than  fifty  thousand  dollars  or  twenty 
thousand  dollars/  It  was  known  that  either  one  of  the 
two  members  who  composed  a  majority  of  the  Florida 
State  canvassers  could  control  its  action  and  give  the  cer 
tificates  to  the  Democrats.  Either  one  of  them  could  settle 
the  presidential  controversy  in  favor  of  the  Democratic 
candidates,  who  lacked  but  one  vote. 

"  How  accessible  to  venal  inducements  they  were,  is  shown 
by  the  testimony  of  McLin,  the  chairman  of  the  Board  of 
State  Canvassers,  in  his  examination  before  the  Potter 
committee  in  June  last.  He  admitted  that  the  true  vote 
of  the  people  of  Florida  was  in  favor  of  the  Democratic 
electors,  and  that  the  fact  even  appeared  on  the  face  of  the 
county  returns,  including  among  them  the  true  return  from 
Baker  county,  notwithstanding  the  great  frauds  against 
the  Democrats  in  some  of  the  county  returns.  He  also 
confessed  that  in  voting  to  give  the  certificates  to  the 
Republican  electors  he  acted  under  the  influence  of  prom 
ises  that  he  should  be  rewarded  in  case  '  Mr.  Hayes  be 
came  President ; '  adding  that  *  certainly  these  promises 
must  have  had  a  strong  control  over  my  judgment  and 
action.' 

"  After  the  certificates  of  the  Louisiana  Returning  Board 
had  been  repeatedly  offered  to  Mr.  Hewitt  and  others  for 
money,  they  were  given  in  favor  of  the  Republican  electors, 
who  had  been  rejected  by  a  large  majority  of  the  voters ; 
and  the  members  of  this  Returning  Board  now  possess  the 
most  important  federal  offices  in  that  State.  The  pregnant 
fact  always  remains  that  none  of  these  corrupt  boards  gave 
their  certificates  to  the  Democratic  electors,  but  they  all 
did  give  them  to  the  Republican  electors. 

"I  had  a  perfectly  fixed  purpose,  from  which  I  never  de 
viated  in  word  or  act,  —  a  purpose  which  was  known  to  or 
assumed  by  all  with  whom  I  was  in  habitual  communica 
tion,  —  if  the  presidency  of  the  United  States  was  to  be 
disposed  of  by  certificates  to  be  won  from  corrupt  return 
ing  boards  by  any  form  of  venal  inducements,  whether  of 

VOL.  II. -12 


178  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

offices  or  money,  I  was   resolved  to  take  no  part  in  the 
shameful  competition,  and  I  took  none. 

"  The  main  interest  of  the  victory  which  resulted  in  my 
election  was  the  expectation  that  through  the  chief  magis 
tracy  a  system  of  reforms,  similar  to  that  which  had  been 
accomplished  in  our  metropolis  and  in  our  State  adminis 
tration,  would  be  achieved  in  the  federal  government. 
For  this  object  it  was  necessary  that  I  should  be  untram 
melled  by  any  commitment  in  the  choice  of  men  to  execute 
the  official  trusts  of  the  government,  and  untrammelled  by 
any  obligations  to  special  interests.  I  had  been  nominated 
and  I  was  elected  without  one  limitation  of  my  perfect 
independence.  To  have  surrendered  or  compromised  the 
advantages  of  this  position  by  a  degrading  competition  for 
returning-board  certificates  would  have  been  to  abandon  all 
that  made  victory  desirable,  everything  which  could  have 
sustained  me  in  the  larger  struggle  that  victory  would  have 
imposed  upon  me.  I  was  resolved  to  go  into  the  presidential 
chair  in  full  command  of  all  my  resources  for  usefulness,  or 
not  at  all. 

"  While  thus  abstaining  from  an  ignominious  competition 
for  such  certificates,  I  saw  these  certificates  obtained  for  the 
Republican  electors,  who  had  not  been  chosen  by  the  people, 
and  denied  to  the  Democratic  electors,  who  had  been  chosen 
by  the  people.  These  false  and  fraudulent  certificates,  now 
confessed  and  proved  to  have  been  obtained  by  corrupt 
inducements,  were  afterward  made  the  pretexts  for  taking 
from  the  people  their  rightful  choice  for  the  presidency  and 
vice-presidency.  These  certificates  were  declared  by  the 
tribunal  to  which  Congress  had  abdicated  the  function  of 
deciding  the  count  of  disputed  electoral  votes  to  be  the 
absolute  and  indisputable  conveyance  of  title  to  the  chief 
magistracy  of  the  nation. 

"  The  State  of  Florida,  which  had  united  all  her  execu 
tive,  legislative,  and  judicial  powers  to  testify  to  Congress, 
long  before  the  count,  who  were  her  genuine  agents,  which 
had  by  statute  caused  a  re-canvass,  the  issue  of  new  certifi 
cates,  and  a  formal  sovereign  authentication  of  the  right  of 
the  true  electors  to  deposit  the  votes  entitled  to  be  counted, 
was  held  to  be  incapable  of  communicating  to  Congress  a 
fact  which  everybody  then  knew  and  which  cannot  now  be 
disputed. 

"  Congress,  though  vested  by  the  Constitution  with  the 


TILDE N   BEFORE    A    COMMITTEE    OF    CONGRESS     179 

authority  to  count  the  electoral  votes ;  though  unrestricted 
either  as  to  time  when  it  should  receive  evidence,  or  as 
to  the  nature  of  that  evidence ;  and  though  subject  to  no 
appeal  from  its  decision,  —  was  declared  to  have  no 
power  to  guide  its  own  count  by  any  information  it  could 
obtain,  or  by  any  authority  which  it  might  accept  from 
the  wronged  and  betrayed  State  whose  vote  was  about  to 
be  falsified. 

"  The  monstrous  conclusion  was  thus  reached  that  the  act 
of  one  man,  holding  the  deciding  vote  in  a  board  of  State 
canvassers  (for  without  his  concurrence  the  frauds  of  the 
other  returning  boards  would  have  failed),  in  giving  cer 
tificates  known  at  the  time,  and  now  by  himself  confessed, 
to  be  false  and  fraudulent,  and  confessed  to  have  been  ob 
tained  by  the  promise  of  office,  —  certificates  whose  char 
acter  was  known  months  before  Congress  could  begin  the 
count,  —  must  prevail  over  all  the  remedial  powers  of  the 
State  of  Florida  and  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
combined,  and  must  dispose  of  the  chief  magistracy  of  this 
Republic. 

"S.  J.  TILDEN." 

Not  content  with  this  formal  disavowal  of  any  knowledge 
of  or  participation  in  any  negotiations  for  the  exercise  of 
any  improper  influence  over  the  Returning  Boards,  Mr. 
Tilden  addressed  a  sub-committee  of  the  Potter  committee, 
then  sitting  in  New  York,  the  following  note  : 

"15  GRAMERCY  PARK,  Feb.  7,  1879. 
"  To  THE  CHAIRMAN  OF  THE  CONGRESSIONAL  COMMITTEE  : 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  I  learn  from  the  public  press  that  it  is  the 
desire  of  your  committee  to  terminate  its  session  in  this 
city  during  the  current  week.  I  take  the  liberty  of  re 
questing  that  before  you  leave  an  opportunity  be  permitted 
me  to  appear  before  you  to  submit  some  testimony  which  I 
deem  pertinent  to  the  inquiry  with  which  you  are  charged. 

"  Very  respectfully, 

"S.  J.  TILDEN." 

The  sub-committee  consisted  of  Hunton,  of  Virginia,  the 
chairman;  Springer,  of  Illinois;  Stenger,  of  Pennsylvania ; 


180  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

Hiscock,  of  New  York ;  and  Eeed,  of  Maine,  — the  first  three 
Democrats  and  the  last  two  Republicans.  On  Saturday, 
the  9th  of  February,  by  special  arrangement  Mr.  Tilden 
appeared  before  the  committee. 

It  was  a  fearful  ordeal.  He  was  very  feeble.  His  voice 
was  scarcely  audible  above  a  whisper.  By  the  treachery  of 
political  foes  and  the  folly  of  political  allies  he  had  been 
suddenly  cast  down  from  a  popular  eminence  rarely  attained 
by  any  American,  to  the  degrading  abyss  of  a  quarter  ses 
sions  criminal,  with  the  popular  sentiment  of  the  nation 
more  or  less  infected  by  the  poisonous  breath  of  a  hostile 
partisan  press.  The  situation  was  enough  to  have  paralyzed 
and  crushed  a  man  of  less  nerve,  less  conscious  of  his 
ability  to  demonstrate  the  factious  motives  which  had 
placed  him  in  that  position,  and  with  less  faith  than  his  in 
the  ultimate  triumph  of  innocence  and  justice.  The  audi 
ence  chamber  was  crowded  almost  to  suffocation.  Since 
the  examination  of  Dr.  Franklin  by  the  Privy  Council  in 
London,  in  1774,  there  has  been  no  public  hearing,  I 
believe,  in  which  there  have  been  such  vast  and  grave  inter 
ests  at  stake  upon  the  testimony  of  a  single  individual.  The 
occasion  was  one  of  unusual  inipressiveness,  especially  when 
the  cross-examination  commenced.  It  soon  became  ap 
parent  that  the  Republican  examiners  were  in  the  hands  of 
their  master.  Before  they  had  finished,  Tilden  had  changed 
places  with  them,  and  put  them  on  the  stand  in  defence  of 
the  administration.  The  following  graphic  account  of  the 
scene  appeared  in  the  "  New  York  Herald  "  of  the  following 


"At  half-past  eleven  o'clock  Mr.  Tilden  appeared,  in  com 
pany  with  his  brother,  Henry  A.  Tilden,  and  ex-Secretary 
of  State  Bigelow.  Mr.  Tilden  was  dressed  in  black,  and 
had  an  air  of  great  solemnity  on  his  face,  which  looked  as 
imperturbable  and  sphinx-like  as  ever.  Since  his  last  public 
appearance  he  seemed  to  have  aged  considerably,  and  yes 
terday  he  looked  quite  ill  and  feeble.  As  he  afterward 


TILDEN   BEFORE    THE    COMMITTEE  181 

explained,  ho  was  suffering  from  a  severe  cold.  It  was, 
indeed,  quite  a  painful  spectacle  to  see  the  slow,  halting, 
lame  walk  with  which  he  passed  the  table  and  reached  his 
seat.  His  figure  was  stiffly  drawn  up  and  seemed  incapable 
of  bending,  as  though  he  were  suffering  from  a  paralytic 
contraction  of  the  limbs.  As  he  entered,  every  e}re  was 
curiously  turned  upon  him.  Not  a  muscle  of  his  face 
relaxed  with  animation  or  expression  as  he  stiffly  extended 
his  hand  to  Mr.  Reed,  of  Maine,  who  received  the  saluta 
tion  with  something  like  a  profound  bow.  Then  Mr. 
Tilden  gave  his  hand  to  Mr.  Hiscock,  the  other  Repub 
lican  cross-examiner,  and  after  saluting  the  Democratic 
members  took  off  his  elegant,  silk-lined  overcoat,  stiffly 
turned  round  and  seated  himself  at  the  table,  while  set 
tling  at  the  same  time  a  large  handkerchief  in  his  breast 
pocket. 

"Ex-Governor  Tilden  sat  erect  in  his  chair  for  over  two 
hours  and  a  half,  and  during  the  greater  portion  of  thi$ 
time  he  gave  his  testimony  in  that  calm,  quiet,  imperturb 
able  manner  peculiar  to  him,  and  without  hardly  moving  a 
muscle  or  changing  the  expression  of  his  countenance.  His 
voice,  which  was  hoarse,  started  very  feebly,  almost  inau- 
dibly.  But  as  Mr.  Tilden  came  to  the  corrupt  negotiations 
alluded  to  in  the  cipher  despatches,  his  hoarse  voice  rose  sud 
denly  to  a  pitch  of  loudness,  vehemence,  and  dramatic  inten 
sity  hardly  ever  observed  in  the  ex-Governor  during  the  most 
exciting  periods  of  his  life.  During  these  portions  of  Mr. 
Tilden's  evidence  there  was  a  flush  of  deep  feeling  over  his 
face,  and  the  mental  excitement  had  such  mastery  over  him 
that  his  lips  twitched,  and  one  of  his  hands,  said  to  be 
smitten  with  paralysis,  trembled  in  a  most  painful  manner. 

"  And  when  Governor  Tilden  dramatically  called  on 
heaven  and  earth  to  witness  the  protestation  of  his  innocence 
of  all  knowledge  of  the  ciphers,  bringing  his  clenched  fist 
heavily  down  upon  the  table,  there  was  a  sympathizing 
outburst  of  applause.  There  was  only  one  relieving 
glimpse  of  humor  during  his  entire  examination,  lasting 
over  two  hours  and  a  half;  namely,  when  Mr.  Reed,  of 
Maine,  questioned  him  about  '  corrupt  attempts,'  and  the 
Governor  returned  dryly,  '  Attempts  to  sell  or  to  buy, 
which?'  at  which  there  was  some  laughter.  When  the 
cross-examination  had  been  concluded  Governor  Tilden 
held  quite  a,  whispered  conversation  with  Mr.  Hiscock. 


182  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

The  moment  Mr.  Tilden  withdrew,  which  he  did  in  the 
same  slow,  halting,  imperturbable  manner  in  which  he 
entered,  the  interest  of  the  day  seemed  to  have  ended,  and 
the  audience  thinned  out  within  a  few  minutes." 

The  official  report  of  his  examination  was  as  follows : 


TESTIMONY  OF  MR.  TILDEN    BEFORE  A  SELECT    COMMITTEE    OF 
CONGRESS    IN   RELATION   TO    THE    CIPHER  DESPATCHES. 

"After Mr.  Tilden  had  been  sworn,  the  chairman  of  the 
committee  said :  Governor  Tilden,  we  received  your  note 
requesting  permission  to  appear  before  this  committee  and 
testify,  and  we  shall  be  glad  to  hear  anything  you  have  to 
say  upon  the  subject  of  these  cipher  telegrams,  subject  to 
cross-examination  when  you  are  through. 

"Mr.  TILDEN.  —  I  have  not  had  an  opportunity  to  see  the 
lithographic  copies  of  the  cipher  telegrams. 

"  The  CHAIRMAN.  —  Will  you  be  kind  enough,  Governor 
Tilden,  to  speak  a  little  louder  ? 

"The  WITNESS.  —  If  you  will  excuse  me,  I  have  a  slight 
cold ;  but  I  will  speak  as  loud  as  I  can.  Upon  the  publi 
cation  of  the  cipher  telegrams  in  the  'New  York  Tribune' 

—  those  relating  to  South  Carolina,  on  the  16th  of  October, 
1878  ;  those  relating  to  Florida  on  the  8th  of  October,  1878 

—  I  read  those  translations ;   I  did  not  recognize  among 
them  a  single  one  that  I  had  ever  seen  in  cipher  or  transla 
tion,  or  the  contents  of  which  had  in  any  way  been  made 
known  to  me.     With  respect  to  those  of  them  that  relate 
to   negotiations    to    induce    members   of   the   Canvassing 
Boards  of  South  Carolina  and  Florida  to  give  the  Demo 
cratic   electors   their   certificates,   I   swear  positively  that 
I  never  saw  one  of  those  telegrams,  either  in  cipher  or 
translation ;  the  contents  of  no  one  of  them,  nor  the  pur 
port  of  any  one  of  them,  was  communicated  to  me  in  any 
manner  whatever. 

"I  had  no  knowledge,  no  information,  no  suspicion  that 
such  a  correspondence,  or  any  similar  correspondence,  had 
existed  until  their  publication  was  announced  in  the  '  New 
York  Tribune,'  followed  by  the  publication  a  few  days 
later.  No  offer,  no  negotiation  in  behalf  of  any  member  of 
the  Returning  Board  of  South  Carolina,  of  the  Board  of 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY.  183 

State  Canvassers  of  Florida,  or  of  any  other  State,  was  ever 
entertained  by  me  or  by  my  authority  or  with  my  sanction  ; 
no  negotiations  with  them,  no  dealing  with  them,  no  deal 
ing  with  any  one  of  them  was  ever  authorized  or  sanctioned 
by  me  in  any  manner  whatsoever. 

"  The  first  information  I  ever  received  that  any  such  nego 
tiations  had  ever  existed  between  any  Democrat  and  any 
member  of  the  Board  of  State  Canvassers  of  South  Carolina 
to  give  their  certificates  to  the  Democratic  electors  was  on 
the  20th  day  of  November,  1876.  I  am  not  able  to  fix  that 
day  positively  by  my  own  recollection,  but  I  fix  it  by  cir 
cumstances.  It  was  the  day  that  Colonel  Pelton  was  in 
Baltimore.  I  remember  the  fact,  and  fix  the  date  from  the 
circumstances  that  have  appeared  during  this  investigation. 
On  the  morning  of  the  20th  of  November,  1876,  Mrs.  Colo 
nel  Pelton  mentioned  in  my  presence  that  her  husband  had 
gone  to  Philadelphia.  It  was  a  casual  mention.  I  did  not 
know  that  he  was  going  to  leave  the  city,  or  that  he  had 
left  the  city  until  she  mentioned  it ;  and  her  mention  of  it 
was  so  casual  as  not  to  attract  any  attention.  A  little  later 
in  the  morning  — 

"  The  CHAIRMAN.  —  Do  you  mean  Philadelphia  ? 

"The  WITNESS. —  Philadelphia.  A  little  later  in  the 
same  morning  I  was  called  on  by  the  treasurer  of  the 
National  Democratic  Committee,  Mr.  Edward  Cooper,  ap 
parently  on  his  way  down  town.  He  told  me  that  Colonel 
Pelton  was  in  Baltimore.  He  told  me  that  Colonel  Pelton 
had  received,  or  was  receiving,  an  offer  in  behalf  of  some 
body  representing,  or  claiming  to  represent,  the  canvassers 
of  the  State  of  South  Carolina  to  give  their  certificates  to 
the  Democratic  electors  for  a  sum  of  money.  I  immedi 
ately  said  that  no  such  offer  should  be  entertained ;  that  no 
negotiations  of  that  nature  should  be  tolerated ;  that  not  a 
cent  of  money  should  be  furnished  for  any  such  purpose ; 
and  that  Colonel  Pelton  must  be  immediately  telegraphed 
to  return  to  New  York. 

"  I  did  not  at  that  time  know  that  Mr.  Smith  M.  Weed 
had  gone  to  South  Carolina,  or  that  he  was  there,  or  that 
he  had  been  there  at  any  time.  I  had  not  seen  him  after  the 
election,  and  had  no  information  of  his  whereabouts  at  that 
time. 

"The  conversation  with  Mr.  Cooper  was  very  brief.  The 
whole  matter  was  disposed  of  within  five  to  ten  minutes. 


184  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

I  made  no  inquiry  into  details,  and  there  was  no  discussion 
between  us.  Mr.  Cooper  concurred  with  me  entirely  in  the 
measures  to  be  taken ;  and  although  I  took  it  for  granted 
that  he  would  make  every  necessary  communication  on  that 
subject,  I  did  not  leave  it  to  that.  I  obtained  from  him 
Colonel  Pelton's  address  in  Baltimore,  and  caused  him  to 
be  immediately  telegraphed  to  in  a  peremptory  manner 
to  return  to  New  York.  My  despatch  was  in  ordinary 
language.  I  had  no  cipher;  I  could  not  read  a  cipher;  I 
could  not  translate  into  a  cipher.  It  never  occurred  to  me 
that  there  was  any  reason  for  any  concealment.  My  belief 
is  that  the  despatch  was  sent  in  my  own  name.  I  think  it 
was  sent  within  ten  minutes  after  Mr.  Cooper's  communica 
tion  to  me.  Colonel  Pelton  returned  that  night  to  New 
York. 

"  With  respect  to  Florida,  I  never  saw  any  one  of  the 
Florida  telegrams  either  in  cipher  or  in  translation.  The 
contents  of  no  one  of  them,  so  far  as  I  know,  were  ever 
communicated  to  me,  —  I  mean  the  telegrams  relating  to 
this  subject ;  and  I  do  not  think  that  the  contents  of  those 
relating  to  the  course  of  the  controversy  down  there  were 
communicated  to  me.  I  am  not  able,  in  looking  them  over, 
to  recall  any  one  of  them  that  I  have  ever  seen.  I  did  not 
know  —  I  was  not  informed  —  that  there  had  been  any  offer 
from  anybody  claiming  to  represent  the  Florida  board  or 
any  member  of  it  to  give  their  certificates  to  the  Democratic 
electors,  until  after  the  certificates  had  been  delivered  and 
a  vote  of  the  electors  deposited  for  transmission  to  Wash 
ington. 

"  My  first  information  on  the  subject  was  subsequent  to 
that  —  after  the  6th  day  of  December,  1876.  Sometime 
after  Mr.  Marble  returned  —  I  do  not  know  when,  whether 
it  was  before  I  went  to  England  or  not  —  he  mentioned  to  me 
one  day,  as  a  bygone  affair,  that  the  vote  of  Florida  was 
offered,  or  rather  the  certificates  that  would  yield  us  the 
vote  ;  but  he  said  that  the  offer  had*  been  declined'.  Some 
time  last  summer,  about  the  time  that  the  letter  of  Mr. 
Marble  on  the  Electoral  Commission  appeared,  I  made  a 
remark  about  the  matter  —  I  spoke  to  Colonel  Pelton  about 
this  offer  from  Florida.  He  answered  in  a  single  sentence, 
that  all  offers  had  been  declined.  That  is  all  the  knowl 
edge  I  had  on  the  subject  until  the  publication  of  these 
despatches. 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  185 

"  With  respect  to  Oregon,  I  never  saw  any  one  of  those 
despatches.  I  now  refer  to  despatches  that  are  contained 
in  the  'Tribune'  Extra,  No.  44. 

"Mr.  SPRINGER. — This  pamphlet? 

"  Governor  TILDEN.  —  Yes,  sir.  I  never  saw  any  one  of 
those  despatches  in  cipher  or  in  translation.  The  substance 
of  no  one  of  them  was  ever  communicated  to  me,  except  a 
despatch  from  Governor  Grover  stating  that  he  would  give 
the  certificate  to  the  Democratic  electors.  The  substance  of 
that  despatch  was  communicated  to  me  by  somebody.  I  did 
not  know  that  it  canie  in  cipher  until  after  it  appeared  in 
the  examination  by  Mr.  Morton's  committee ;  and  in  what 
form  that  communication  was  made,  I  cannot  now  state,  but 
I  was  aware  of  the  fact. 

"  Some  of  the  telegrams  appear  to  have  been  addressed  to 
Colonel  Pelton  at  No.  15  Gramercy  park,  which  is  my 
residence.  I  asked  one  of  my  young  men  to  look  them  over 
and  tell  me  how  many  there  were.  I  think  he  told  me  there 
were  fifteen  of  the  Florida  despatches  so  addressed,  chiefly 
sent  from  Mr.  Marble.  So  far  as  I  know  or  believe,  none 
of  those  despatches  were  ever  delivered  at  my  house. 

"  Mr.  STENGER.  —  Do  you  say  chiefly  sent  to  Mr.  Marble  ? 

"  The  CHAIRMAN.  —  He  says  chiefly  sent  from  Mr.  Marble. 

r'  The  WITNESS.  —  Chiefly  sent  by  Mr.  Marble.  So  far  as 
I  know,  no'ne  of  these  were  ever  delivered  at  my  house. 
Colonel  Pelton's  habits  and  hours  and  my  own  were  entirely 
different.  I  was  still  Governor  of  New  York,  and  had 
many  executive  duties  to  perform.  I  was  burdened  by  the 
daily  reception  of  people  coming  from  all  parts  of  the 
United  States.  From  three  to  five  hours  a  day  w^ere,  I 
think,  usually  devoted  to  these  receptions  by  me.  Colonel 
Pelton  seldom  came  into  the  house  until  after  I  had  been 
long  in  bed.  He  was  very  busy  at  the  committee-rooms, 
and  I  saw  very  little  of  him.  I  think  if  any  considerable 
number  of  telegrams  had  come  to  the  house,  I  should  have 
found  it  out  in  some  way.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  of 
these  cipher  telegrams  ever  came  into  my  house.  At  any 
rate,  they  never  met  my  eye  or  came  within  my  knowledge. 

ft  Now,  one  word  as  to  the  gentlemen  who  went  to  the 
South,  to  the  disputed  States,  to  watch  and  guard  the  can 
vass  in  behalf  of  the  Democratic  party.  That  measure 
originated  with  either  Mr.  Hewitt  or  General  Grant. 
Within  a  day  or  two  after  the  election,  I  think,  General 


186  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

Grant  wrote  a  letter  in  which  he  proposed  such  an  expe 
dient.  Mr.  Hewitt  either  had  started  it  before,  or  embraced 
it  immediately  after.  I  did  not  select  or  send  the  gentlemen 
who  went  to  those  States.  With  few  exceptions,  they  were 
not  selected  or  sent  after  consultation  with  me.  I  did  not 
attempt  to  supervise  their  action.  I  did  not  communicate 
with  them.  In  no  instance  during  the  whole  of  that  time 
did  I  ever  communicate,  directly  or  indirectly,  with  any 
gentleman  who  was  in  the  South  on  that  business ;  I  never 
received  any  communication  from  them  or  any  of  them, 
except  one,  signed  by  Mr.  Randall,  Mr.  Ottendorfer,  Mr. 
Lamar,  and  Mr.  Watterson,  suggesting  that  some  kind  of 
a  proposition  should  be  made  by  me  to  Mr.  Hayes.  I  never 
answered  that  despatch  except  verbally  to  Mr.  Ottendorfer, 
after  he  returned  and  called  on  me.  I  was  very  busy  all 
that  time.  I  took  it  for  granted  that  these  gentlemen  un- 

O  c> 

derstood  their  business,  and  I  did  not  undertake  to  direct 
them.  The  idea  that  they  were  my  personal  agents  in  any 
sense  has  no  foundation  in  fact.  They  were  the  repre 
sentatives  and  delegates  of  the  Democratic  partv,  chosen 
generally  by  its  organization.  No  man,  so  far  as  I  know, 
ever  went  to  any  of  those  States  with  any  commission, 
authority,  or  any  contemplation  to  do  anything  that  a  gen 
tleman  ought  not  to  do,  or  to  do  anything  but  defend  the 
interests  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  to  watch  and  guard 
those  interests  against  apprehended  fraud. 

"  During  the  whole  time,  from  the  7th  day  of  November, 
1876,  which  was  the  day  of  the  election,  until  the  6th  clay 
of  December  of  the  same  year,  which  was  the  day  on  which 
the  electors  met  and  deposited  their  votes  for  transmission 
to  Washington,  I  maintained  a  uniform  attitude.  My  pur 
pose  was  under  no  circumstances  to  enter  any  competition 
to  obtain  the  votes,  the  certificates  of  the  Canvassing  Boards 
of  the  disputed  States,  even  those  to  which  I  believed  we 
were  entitled,  except  by  discussion,  argument,  reason,  truth, 
justice.  There  never  was  a  time  —  not  a  moment,  not  an 
instant  —  in  which  I  ever  entertained  any  idea  of  seeking 
to  obtain  those  certificates  by  any  venal  inducements,  any 
promise  of  money  or  of  office  to  the  men  who  had  them  to 
grant  or  dispose  of.  My  purpose  on  that  subject  was  per 
fectly  distinct,  invariable ;  and  it  was  generally  assumed 
by  all  my  friends  without  discussion.  It  may  have  been 
sometimes  expressed,  and  whenever  the  slightest  occasion 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  187 

arose  for  it  to  be  discussed  it  was  expressed.     It  was  never 
deviated  from  in  word  or  act. 

"To  the  people  who,  as  I  believe,  elected  me  President 
of  the  United  States,  to  the  four  millions  and  a  quarter  of 
citizens  who  gave  me  their  suffrages,  I  owed  duty,  service, 
and  every  honorable  sacrifice ;  but  not  a  surrender  of  one 
jot  or  tittle  of  my  sense  of  right  or  personal  self-respect. 

"  Whatever  the  disappointment  to  those  who  voted  for 
me ;  whatever  the  public  consequences  of  suffering  a  sub 
version  of  the  elective  system,  by  which  alone  free  govern 
ment  —  self-government  —  can  be  carried  on  ;  by  whatever 
casuistry  a  different  course  might  have  been  advocated  or 
defended,  —  I  was  resolved  that  if  there  was  to  be  an 
auction  of  the  chief  magistracy  of  my  country,  I  would 
not  be  among  the  bidders.  [Applause.] 

"  The  CHAIRMAN.  —  The  room  will  be  cleared  if  this  ap 
plause  does  not  cease.  It  is  expressly  understood  that 
there  is  to  be  no  manifestation  of  approbation  or  disappro 
bation  on  either  side. 

"  The  WITNESS  (continuing) .  —  I  was  determined  in 
such  an  event,  or  in  the  apprehension  of  such  an  event, 
that  I  would  meet  such  a  degraded  condition  of  public  af 
fairs,  not  by  sharing  it  in  any  degree,  not  by  acquiescence, 
not  by  toleration,  but  by  an  unqualified  and  perpetual  pro 
test,  appealing  to  the  people  to  reassert  and  reestablish 
their  great  right  —  the  greatest  of  their  rights,  the  right 
without  which  all  others  are  worthless  —  their  right  to  elec 
tive  self-government.  I  have  done  so. 

"  The  Cross-examination. 

"The  CHAIRMAN  (to  Messrs.  Eeed  and  Hiscock).  — Will 
you  ask  Governor  Tilden  any  questions  ? 

"  The  cross-examination  was  begun  by  Mr.  Reed. 

"Mr.  REED.  —  Governor  Tilden,  who  was  your  private 
secretary  at  the  time  of  these  transactions?  A.  George 
W.  Smith.  Do  you  mean  my  private  secretary  personally, 
or  as  governor? 

"  Q.  Personally.     A.  George  W.  Smith. 

"  Q.  I  find  among  these  telegrams  in  the  f  Tribune,'  one, 
No.  40,  addressed  to  George  W.  Smith,  No.  15  Gramercy 
park,  in  the  cipher  which  was  used  in  these  incriminating 
despatches.  It  relates  to  a  suggestion  in  regard  to  Oregon, 


188  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

and  was  transmitted  by  Mr.  Manton  Marble  to  George  W. 
Smith,  No.  15  Gramercy  park.  Did  you  ever  see  that  de 
spatch?  A.  I  do  remember  having  seen  it. 

"§.  Have  you  any  impression  in  regard  to  it  —  whether 
you  did  receive  it  or  not?  Will  you  kindly  look  at  the 
translation  of  the  original?  A.  I  have  no  doubt  Mr. 
Smith  can  tell.  He  is  here.  He  has  been  summoned  by 
the  committee. 

"Q.    Well,  sir,  can  you?    A.  I  have  no  recollection  of  it. 

"Q.    None  whatever? 

"  The  WITNESS  (reading) . — '  The  Governor  suggested ' — 

"  Mr.  KEED.  —  The  translation  follows  it.  Will  you 
look  over  the  translation  and  see  if  that  recalls  to  your 
mind  having  received  that  despatch?  A.  Mr.  Smith 
may  have  shown  it  to  me.  He  will  no  doubt  tell  himself; 
but  I  have  no  recollection  of  it. 

"§.  Doesn't  that  suggestion  in  it  about  O'Conor's  opinion 
recall  anything  to  your  mind?  A.  I  do  not  remember  that 
Mr.  O'Conor  was  ever  applied  to  for  an  opinion  on  that 
subject. 

"$.  Or  that  any  suggestion  was  made  that  Mr.  O'Conor's 
opinion  should  be  obtained  on  the  subject?  A.  I  do  not 
remember;  it  might  have  been  made. 

"Q.  You  have  read  these  various  publications  in  reference 
to  these  despatches?  A.  I  read  them  immediately  on  their 
publication. 

"§.  Do  you  recollect  one  despatch  in  this  same  cipher 
from  Louisiana  which  began,  '  Bigler  to  Russia,'  and  was 
translated  Bigler  to  Tilden  —  do  you  recollect  that ?  A.  I 
do  not  remember  it. 

"  Q.  Do  you  remember  that  which  was  also  sent  to  George 
W.  Smith,  your  private  secretary —  do  you  remember  if 
that  despatch  was  submitted  to  you?  A.  I  should  think  it 
likely  that  if  Mr.  Smith  received  the  despatch,  he  would 
have  submitted  it  to  me. 

"  Q.  He  was  your  private  secretary,  and  if  he  had  received 
either  of  these  despatches,  it  would  have  been  his  duty  to 
submit  them  to  you  ?  A.  I  think  so. 

"§.  Have  you  any  doubt  that  he  did?  A.  He  was  my 
personal  secretary. 

"Q.  Your  personal  secretary,  precisely;  that  is  what  I 
mean.  A.  Mr.  Charles  Stebbens  was  my  secretary  as 
governor. 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  189 

"Q.  It  would  have  been  Mr.  Smith's  duty  to  have  sub 
mitted  them  to  you.  Have  you  any  doubt  that  he  did  sub 
mit  them?  A.  I  do  not  know  anything  about  the  existence 
of  such  a  despatch ;  I  have  no  recollection  about  it. 

"§.  It  would  seem,  Governor  Tilden,  that  your  personal 
secretary  had  this  cipher.  Do  you  know  whether  he  did  or 
did  not  have  it,  of  your  own  knowledge?  A.  I  do  not 
think  that  he  did  have  it. 

"§.  How,  then,  were  these  despatches  translated  if  he  did 
not  have  the  cipher.  A.  He  may  not  have  been  able  to 
translate  them.  He  may  have  had  to  get  somebody  else  to 
do  it. 

"$.  What  do  you  know  about  this  cipher?  A.  I  do  not 
know  anything  about  it. 

"Q.  You  never  had  it?     A.  I  never  had  it. 

"  Q.  And  you  do  not  know  what  it  was?  A.  I  could  not 
have  put  any  message  into  cipher  if  I  had  tried ;  I  could 
not  have  got  any  one  out  of  it. 

"§.  I  am  merely  suggesting  that  these  despatches  seem  to 
indicate  that  your  personal  private  secretary  had  this  same 
cipher  which  has  been  used  in  these  incriminating  de 
spatches  in  order  to  give  you  an  opportunity  to  state  any 
facts  in  connection  with  them  which  will  throw  light  upon 
that  circumstance  which  seems  to  be  indicated  by  these 
despatches.  Have  you  any  facts  with  which  you  can  assist 
us?  A.  He  is  here.  He  has  been  summoned  by  the  com 
mittee.1 

"Q.  Well,  I  want  to  know  whether  you  ever  knew  that  he 
had  it?  A.  I  do  not  think  he  had  the  cipher  at  all — the 
cipher  that  was  used  at  the  Everett  House. 

"§.  When  Colonel  Pelton  returned  from  Baltimore,  did 
you  have  an  interview  with  him?  A.  I  suppose  I  did. 

"§.  Do  you  recollect  whether  you  did  or  not  ?  A.  No 
doubt  I  did. 

"§.  Will  you  be  kind  enough  to  state  what  that  inter 
view  was?  A.  I  cannot  recall  it  in  detail.  I  have  no 
doubt  I  expressed  impatience. 

"  Q.  Will  you  give  your  best  recollection  as  to  the  sub 
stance  of  that  interview?  Of  course  I  am  not  expecting 


1  Mr.  George  W.  Smith  afterwards  testified  that  he  never  received  this 
despatch ;  that  he  never  knew  of  its  existence,  or  anything  about  it,  except 
that  he  had  seen  it  in  the  publication  in  the  hands  of  the  committee,  and 
in  the  regular  issue  of  the  "  New  York  Tribune." 


190  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

you  to  repeat  words,  because  none  of  us  can  do  that ;  but 
will  you  give  us  the  substance  of  what  you  said  to  him,  and 
what  he  said  to  you?  A.  I  do  not  think  he  said  any 
thing  to  me.  I  think  it  was  a  mere  outburst  of  impatience 
and  displeasure  that  he  had  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
Baltimore  transaction. 

"§.  To  which  he  made  no  reply?  A.  I  think  he  made 
no  reply. 

"  Mr.  SPRINGER.  —  I  did  not  hear  what  you  said,  Mr.  Til- 
den.  A.  I  said  my  impression  was  that  it  was  a  mere 
outburst  of  displeasure  and  impatience  on  my  part  that  he 
had  had  anything  to  do  with  the  transaction. 

"Mr.  REED. — You  knew,  Governor Tilclen,  the  position 
which  Colonel  Pelton  occupied  in  relation  to  the  Democratic 
National  Committee?  A.  I  suppose  so;  yes,  sir. 

"Q.  You  knew  he  was  acting  secretary,  and  that  these 
telegrams  in  large  numbers  were  coming  to  him,  did  you 
not?  A.  I  knew  that  a  great  many  telegrams  were  com 
ing  to  him. 

"§.    He  was  residing  then  at  your  house?     A.    He  was. 

"Q.  Did  you,  after  this  Baltimore  transaction  came  to 
your  knowledge,  make  any  effort  or  suggestion  that  he 
should  be  removed  from  the  position  in  which  you  knew  he 
was?  A.  I  don't  think  I  did. 

"§.  Why  not?  A.  In  the  first  place,  I  did  not  know 
of  the  Baltimore  transaction,  except  to  this  extent,  that  he 
had  been  receiving  an  offer  there.  I  did  not  know  that  he  had 
made  any  negotiations  or  given  any  encouragement.  I  did 
not  acquire  any  knowledge  that  these  despatches  had  passed 
backward  and  forward  until  their  publication.  In  the  con 
versation  with  Mr.  Cooper  I  did  not  acquire  any  informa 
tion  on  the  subject,  except  in  a  general  way.  I  thought  the 
best  way  to  deal  with  the  thing  was  to  stop  it ;  and  I  did 
stop  it,  and  stopped  it  effectually.  I  did  not  believe  it  pos 
sible  that  any  such  transactions  could  be  afterward  renewed. 
Besides,  I  knew  that  Colonel  Pelton  had  no  power.  He 
was  sometimes  called  acting  secretary,  but  he  had  command 
of  no  money.  He  had  no  actual  power ;  he  was  not  able 
to  do  anything  without  the  concurrence  of  other  men.  I 
did  not  imagine  he  would  attempt  to  do  anything  of  the 
sort  again. 

"§.  Did  not  the  fact  that  he  had  once  attempted  to  do 
it  give  you  an  idea  that  he  would  be  likely  to  do  it  again  ? 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  191 

A.  I  did  not  suppose  that  he  had  attempted  to  do  any 
thing  ;  I  simply  supposed  he  had  received  an  offer. 

"§.  Will  you  be  kind  enough  to  give  us  the  conversa 
tion  which  you  had  with  Mr.  Edward  Cooper,  as  nearly  as 
you  can  recall  it?  A.  I  have  given  it  to  you  in  a  general 
way. 

"Q.  I  should  like  to  press  the  question.  I  should  like 
to  have  it  as  fully  as  you  can  give  it ;  and  if  you  will  be 
kind  enough  to  put  it  in  the  form  of  what  he  said,  and 
what  you  said,  I  shall  be  obliged.  A.  The  conversation 
with  Mr.  Cooper  did  not  occupy  more  than  five  or  ten 
minutes. 

"y.  Did  he  begin  the  conversation?  A.  He  began  the 
conversation. 

"§.  What  did  he  say?  or  if  you  cannot  give  that,  what 
was  the  substance  of  his  opening  remark?  A.  He  commu 
nicated  to  me  the  fact  that  Colonel  Pelton  was  in  Balti 
more  ;  the  fact  that  Colonel  Pelton  was  receiving  an  offer 
of  this  nature. 

"§.  Did  he  tell  you  the  amount  of  the  proposition?  A. 
I  think  he  probably  gave  it. 

"§.  Did  he  tell  you  that  he  had  received  a  telegram 
from  Colonel  Pelton  asking  for  money?  A.  I  do  not  know 
whether  he  told  me  that  or  not ;  he  may  have  done  so. 

"§'.  What  further  conversation  took  place?  A.  The 
substance  of  the  conversation  was  that  Pelton  was  in  Balti 
more,  and  that  the  certificates  of  the  canvassers  of  the  State 
of  South  Carolina  were  offered,  and  that  he  was  down  there 
doing  something,  —  dealing  with  them,  or  looking  into  it  in 
some  way. 

"Q.  Did  he  tell  you  anything  about  Colonel  Pelton's 
having  cautioned  him  not  to  tell  you?  A.  No. 

"§.  Nothing  of  that  sort  was  mentioned?  A.  No;  he 
did  not  mention  that  he  had  seen  him  the  night  before. 

"Q.  Where  were  you  the  night  before?  A.  I  don't  re 
member. 

"§.  Do  you  remember  whether  you  were  in  New  York 
or  not?  A.  I  think  I  was;  I  did  not  know  that  Colonel 
Pelton  was  going  away. 

"Q.  When  did  you  next  hear  of  corrupt  attempts,  after 
this,  in  any  of  the  States?  A.  What  do  you  mean  by 
corrupt  attempts? 

"§.    I  mean  these  corrupt  transactions  that  are  depicted 


192  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

here.  A.  Do  you  mean  attempts  to  sell,  or  attempts  to 
buy? 

"§.  Both,  Governor,  or  either.  A.  I  never  heard  of 
any  attempt  on  the  part  of  our  people  to  buy ;  the  atmos 
phere  was  full  of  rumors. 

"§.  Have  you  not  read  these  Smith- Weed  despatches, 
and  the  whole  account  which  your  nephew  gives  of  them  ? 
And  after  that  do  you  say  that  you  never  heard  of  any  at 
tempt  to  buy?  Do  you  mean  to  say  that?  A.  I  mean  to 
say  that  I  did  not  hear  at  that  time. 

"$.  Will  you  say  that  you  have  never  heard  of  any 
attempts  to  buy?  A.  I  meant  up  to  the  time  of  the  pub 
lication  of  these  despatches. 

"§.  But  since  then  you  have  heard  of  it?  A.  I  regard 
those  as  attempts  to  sell  rather  than  attempts  to  buy. 

"§.  It  is  a  distinction  which  you,  of  course,  have  a 
right  to  make.  With  regard  to  these  attempts  to  sell,  when 
did  you  first  hear  of  corrupt  attempts  to  sell,  subsequent  to 
this  Baltimore  transaction  ?  A.  I  cannot  say ;  the  atmos 
phere  was  full  of  rumors. 

"§.  At  what  time  did  you  become  conscious  of  this  ful 
ness  of  the  atmosphere,  Governor  Tilden?  A.  There 
were  rumors  at  the  investigation  before  Field's  committee 
about  cases  of  that  kind.  I  met,  last  summer,  a  gentleman 
in  the  cars — 

"Q.  Well,  I  am  not  after  this.  I  think  I  expressed  it 
clearly  —  these  criminal  attempts  either  to  buy  or  to  sell, 
which  are  mentioned  here  in  the  '  Tribune '  Extra ;  when 
did  you  first  hear  of  them  after  the  Baltimore  experience  ? 
A .  I  did  not  hear  anything  more  about  Baltimore  or  about 
South  Carolina.  That  was  the  end  of  that.  I  did  not  hear 
anything  about  Florida  till  after  the  vote  was  given. 

"  Q-  Who  first  told  you  of  the  Florida  performance  ?  I 
will  use  a  neutral  term.  A.  I  cannot  remember;  I  first 
heard  of  it  after  the  gentleman  that  went  to  Florida  had 
returned. 

«Q.  Did  Mr.  Marble  tell  you?  A.  Mr.  Marble  told  me 
some  time ;  I  think  it  was  later. 

"§.  Are  you  aware  that  Mr.  Marble  has  testified  that  he 
never  told  you  of  it  ? 

"Mr.  STENGER. — He  cannot  be  aware  of  that,  because 
Mr.  Marble  did  not  so  testify. 

"Mr.  REED.  — I  understood  him  so. 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  193 

"  Mr.  STENGER.  — I  think  you  are  mistaken. 

"Mr.  TILDEN. — I  said  I  do  not  know  whether  it  was 
before  I  went  to  England  or  not.  Mr.  Marble  mentioned 
to  me,  some  time,  that  the  certificate  of  Florida  was  offered. 

"Mr.  REED.  —  Was  it  before  what  is  called  the  'Ark  and 
Shekinah '  letter ?  A.  Yes,  sir. 

"Q.  Did  he  tell  you  the  particulars  of  the  transmission 
of  those  despatches?  A.  He  did  not. 

"§.  Did  he  make  any  talk  to  you  about  this  being  a 
danger-signal  that  he  transmitted?  A.  He  did  not. 

"().  He  never  alluded  to  it  in  those  words  or  anything 
like  it?  A.  He  merely  mentioned  the  circumstance. 

"$.  How  did  he  mention  it?  A.  He  mentioned  it  as  a 
past  transaction. 

"Q.  In  what  terms,  as  nearly  as  you  can  recollect?  Will 
you  give  us  the  conversation?  A.  He  said  the  Florida 
certificates  were  for  sale.  I  did  not  inquire  into  particulars, 
for  several  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  long  past,  and 
he  mentioned  it  like  any  other  fact  in  bygone  history. 

"$.  He  did  not  give  you  the  details,  and  you  did  not  ask 
for  them?  A.  I  did  not  make  any  inquiry. 

*'Q.  Did  you  make  any  inquiries  of  your  nephew  as  to  the 
particulars  of  this  South  Carolina  matter?  A.  I  did  not. 

*'Q.  Why  not?     A.  I  did  not  think  it  was  necessary. 

f*Q.  Did  you  not  feel  any  interest  in  it?  A.  I  only  felt 
an  interest  in  stopping  it. 

"Q.  Then  you  did  not  regard  that  as  a  danger-signal? 
A.  Regard  what  as  a  danger-signal? 

"Q.  The  transmission  of  the  propositions  in  any  way? 
A.  You  are  speaking  of  South  Carolina? 

"(?.  Yes,  sir. 

"Mr.  SPRINGER.  — Mr.  Marble's  despatch  was  with  refer 
ence  to  Florida. 

''  The  WITNESS.  —  I  do  not  know  what  you  mean  by 
danger-signals. 

"§.  It  would  not  occur  to  you  that  the  transmission  of  a 
proposition  to  sell  would  be  a  danger-signal  ?  A.  I  should 
think  that  a  man  who  had  the  power  to  sell,  and  made  the 
proposition,  wanted  to  sell. 

"  Q.  And  the  man  who  transmitted  it  would  transmit  it 
rather  for  the  purpose  of  purchase  than  as  a  danger-signal  ? 
A.  That  would  depend  on  the  motives  of  the  man  who 
transmitted  it. 

VOL.  IL  - 13 


194  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

"§.  Colonel  Pelton  is  a  nephew  of  yours?    A.  Yes,  sir. 

"  Q.  When  did  he  first  begin  to  reside  in  your  house  ? 
A.  About  nine  years  ago,  I  think. 

tfQ.  When  did  he  cease  his  residence  there?  A.  About 
the  1st  of  July. 

"  Q.  He  had  been  your  military  secretary  while  you  were 
governor,  and  was  at  the  time  of  these  transactions  your 
military  secretary?  A.  He  was. 

"  Q.  And  with  your  knowledge  and  consent  was  the  acting 
secretary  of  the  Democratic  National  Committee?  A.  He 
was  not  with  my  consent,  though  he  was  with  my  knowledge. 

"§.  You  knew  it?  A.  I  knew  he  called  himself  acting 
secretary. 

"$.  You  knew  he  was  really  acting  secretary?  A.  I 
knew  he  was  very  active  in  the  business. 

"Q.  And  that  he  was  really  acting  secretary?  A.  I 
came  down  from  Albany  in  the  latter  part — the  third  or 
fourth  week  —  of  September.  The  canvass  was  two-thirds 
or  three-fourths  completed  while  I  was  in  Albany.  When 
I  came  down  here  I  found  Colonel  Pelton  acting  as  sec 
retary. 

"Q.  Did  you  make  any  objection  to  his  acting  as  secre 
tary?  A.  I  did. 

"Q.  To  whom?  A.  To  several  gentlemen  of  the  com 
mittee. 

"(J).    Will  you  kindly  name  them ?      A.    I  cannot  now. 

"Q.    Cannot  you  name  any  of  them?      A.  No. 

"Q.  Did  you  make  any  objection  to  him,  and  request 
him  to  cease  acting  in  that  capacity?  A.  I  did  not  request 
him  to  cease,  but  I  was  not  pleased  with  it,  for  several 
reasons. 

"Q.  Did  you  manifest  your  displeasure  to  him?  A.  I 
manifested  my  regret. 

"Q.    To  whom?     A.   To  him. 

"$.    What  did  he  say?      A.    I  cannot  tell  you. 

"Q.  But  you  did  not  go  to  the  extent  of  insisting  on  his 
ceasing  to  act  in  that  capacity?  A.  I  did  not.  I  have  no 
hesitation  in  stating  to  you  all  about  it. 

"  Q.  Of  course  I  cannot  go  into  the  whole  matter ;  I 
only  want  to  go  into  certain  aspects  of  it.  Did  you  know 
Mr.  Smith  M.  Weed?  A.  Yes,  sir. 

"  Q.  How  long  have  you  known  him  ?  A.  I  cannot  say ; 
some  years. 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  195 

"Q.  Has  he  been  in  confidential  relations  with  you  ?  A. 
No  more  than  many  prominent  Democrats. 

"Q.  But  as  much  as  other  prominent  Democrats  ?  A. 
As  much  as  some  and  less  than  others. 

"  Q.  When  did  you  first  know  he  was  in  South  Carolina  ? 
A.  Not  till  after  he  came  back. 

"Q.  Was  it  concealed  from  you?  A.  I  do  not  know. 
No,  I  guess  not. 

"§.  How  did  it  happen  that  you  did  not  know  he  was 
there?  A.  Because  I  did  not  undertake  to  know  all  that 
was  being  done  by  the  committee. 

"  Q.  Did  you  not  undertake  to  keep  the  general  run  of 
it,  and  of  what  was  going  on  in  the  South?  A.  Not  a 
very  close  run. 

"Q.  Well,  you  undertook  to  keep  the  run  of  it,  didn't 
you?  A.  When  the  legal  proceedings  in  Florida  were  in 
agitation  I  gave  particular  attention  to  them.  I  did  not 
undertake  to  keep  much  run  of  these  visiting  statesmen. 

*(Q.  Not  even  to  know  their  names?  A.  I  knew  their 
names  when  I  heard  them  through  the  public  journals. 

"Q.  And  you  say  now  you  knew  nothing  of  Mr.  Smith 
Weed's  presence  in  South  Carolina  until  after  his  return? 
A.  I  say  so  positively. 

"Q.  Did  you  have  any  talk  with  Mr.  Weed  about  his 
transmittal  of  this  proposition?  A.  I  presume  I  did. 

"Q.  What  was  that  conversation?  A.  It  was  a  very 
brief  conversation. 

"§.  Well,  sir,  state  it.  A.  In  which  I  took  him  to 
task  for  taking  part  in  such  transactions  ?  I  did  not  feel 
particularly  responsible  for  Mr.  Weed. 

"Q.  At  what  time  was  the  Oregon  affair  published, 
Governor  Tilden?  A.  Published  as  the  result  of  an  in 
vestigation  by  a  sub-committee  of  the  Senate. 

"Q.    About  what  time?     A.    I  cannot  tell  you  the  date. 

"§.  About  what  time?  Tell  as  nearly  as  you  can. 
A.  In  the  winter  of  1877. 

"Q.  Mr.  Pelton  remained  in  your  house  during  that 
time  until  July,  after  the  publication  of  the  Oregon  de 
spatches?  A.  He  did. 

"<J.  Mr.  Manton  Marble  occupied  confidential  relations 
with  you,  did  he?  A.  He  occupied  relations  with  me 
which  to  a  certain  extent  were  confidential. 

"§.    He  stopped  to  bid  you  good-by  before  he  started 


196  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

to  Florida.  Do  you  remember  that  interview?  A.  I 
recollect  seeing  him  before  he  went  to  Florida. 

"§.  What  transpired  at  that  interview ?  A.  Nothing 
more  than  leave-taking.  I  gave  him  no  instructions  as  to 
what  he  should  do,  — no  suggestions. 

"Q.  You  say  you  did  not  keep  a  very  close  run,  and 
did  not  pay  much  attention  to  what  the  visiting  statesmen 
were  doing  there,  if  I  understand  you  right,  in  South 
Carolina  and  Florida.  Do  I?  A.  Yes. 

"§.  Did  you  have  any  purpose  in  not  doing  that?  A. 
I  had  not ;  I  supposed  they  had  been  selected  by  the  com 
mittee  of  the  Democratic  party  to  do  a  particular  duty,  and 
were  competent  to  do  it,  and  I  did  not  undertake  to  super 
vise  or  direct  them.  I  did  not  give  any  human  being  any 
advice  or  instructions  in  that  connection.  • 

"§.  Did  Mr.  Edward  Cooper,  when  he  told  you  of  that 
South  Carolina  proposition,  inform  you  that  he  had  given 
your  nephew  any  encouragement  that  he  would  furnish  the 
money?  A.  He  did  not. 

"§.  Did  he  make  any  suggestion  of  any  kind  which 
conveyed  that  idea  in  any  way  to  your  mind?  A.  He 
did  not.  As  I  before  said,  the  conversation  was  very  brief. 
It  opened  by  a  mere  statement  of  facts,  and  I  responded  so 
quickly  that  there  was  no  chance  for  any  discussion.  I  was 
irritated  at  the  idea  of  Pelton  mixing  himself  up  in  any 
such  transaction.  If  I  had  felt  disposed  to  engage  in  such 
a  transaction,  Pelton  would  have  been  the  last  man  in  the 
United  States  that  I  would  have  commissioned  to  have  any 
thing  to  do  with  it,  or  allowed  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
it.  I  considered  his  interference  to  be  a  piece  of  officious 
meddling. 

"§.  You  published  a  card  on  or  about  October  18,  relat 
ing  to  these  despatches,  did  you  not?  A.  I  did. 

"  Q.  In  that  card  you  made  no  allusion  to  these  particu 
lars  of  your  knowledge  of  the  transaction  which  failed  at 
Baltimore,  did  you?  A.  I  did  not. 

"§.    Why  not?     A.    There  was  no  occasion  to  do  it. 

"  Q.  I  ask  the  question  —  why  you  did  not  state  in  this 
card  of  explanation  to  the  public,  the  particulars  that  you 
did  know  of  this  Baltimore  transaction?  A.  Because  it 
was  not  pertinent  to  what  I  was  stating. 

"§.  In  one  paragraph  in  the  letter  you  say,  f  I  have  no 
knowledge  of  the  existence  of  these  telegrams,  nor  any 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  197 

information  about  them,  except  what  has  been  derived  from 
or  since  the  publications  of  the  "Tribune."5  A.  That  is 
true. 

"§.  Yes,  sir;  but  were  you  not  aware  at  the  time  that 
that  would  convey,  and  did  you  not  intend  it  to  convey,  the 
impression  to  the  public  that  you  knew  nothing  about  these 
transactions  until  the  publication  of  the  despatches  in  the 
'Tribune'  ?  A.  I  did  not  intend  to  convey  anything  of 
the  kind. 

"Q.  Do  not  you  see  that  it  does  convey  that?  A.  No;  I 
do  not. 

"§.  I  mean  to  a  reader  who  does  not  know  as  much  as 
you  do?  A.  Read  the  phraseology,  and  you  will  find  it  as 
I  say. 

"(^.  'I  have  no  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  these 
telegrams,  nor  any  information  about  them,  except  what 
has  been  derived  from  or  since  the  publications  of  the 
"  Tribune." '  That  is  literally  true,  you  say  ?  A .  Certainly. 

"Q.  You  say  it  is  literally  true  ;  but  don't  you  see  that  it 
conveys,  and  did  you  not  intend  it  to  convey,  to  the  public, 
at  the  time,  the  impression  that  you  knew  absolutely  noth 
ing  about  the  transactions  themselves?  A.  No  ;  I  did  not. 

"  Q.  You  at  least  concealed  the  fact,  or  at  least  you  did  not 
make  public  the  fact,  that  you  had  information  with  regard 
to  the  transactions  themselves?  A.  Will  you  be  good 
enough  to  read  the  next  sentence  ? 

"Q.  '  So  much  of  these  telegrams  generally' — but  then 
you  proceed  to  speak  of  Florida  ;  I  am  confining  myself  to 
the  South  Carolina  ones.  You  can  see  the  letter;  I  want 
to  be  perfectly  frank  with  you.  A.  You  will  observe  that 
the  two  States  of  Florida  and  South  Carolina  are  treated 
separately  in  this  publication .  The  paragraph  immediately 
following  deals  in  detail  with  South  Carolina. 

"§.  Oh,  no;  it  deals  with  the  Board  of  Canvassers  of 
Florida.  A.  No;  it  deals  with  South  Carolina. 

"§.  It  does  in  the  copy  I  have.  A.  Read  the  next  para 
graph  under  *  secondly.' 

"§.  Very  well,  I  will  call  your  attention  to  that.  You 
say  :  '  Secondly,  as  to  the  publications  in  the  "  Tribune  " 
purporting  to  be  translations  of  cipher  telegrams  relating 
to  the  canvass  of  votes  in  South  Carolina,  I  can  speak  of 
them  no  less  definitely  and  positively.  None  of  such  tele 
grams,  either  in  cipher  or  translated,  was  ever  shown  to  me, 


198  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

or  its  contents  made  known  to  me.'  There  you  confine 
your  denial  that  you  knew  anything  about  it  to  the  tele 
grams,  and  do  not  deny  the  fact  that  you  knew  of  the 
transaction.  A.  Well? 

"$.  Well,  now,  does  it  not  strike  you,  and  did  it  not  at 
the  time,  that  that  was  calculated  to  convey  to  the  public 
the  impression  that  you  not  only  knew  nothing  of  the  tele 
grams,  and  their  contents  as  such,  but  also  that  you  knew 
nothing  of  the  transaction  ?  A..  No. 

"§.  Will  you  look  at  it  and  see  if  that  would  not  l)e  the 
natural  conclusion  from  that?  A.  The  question  was  what  I 
knew  about  these  telegrams.  I  knew  nothing  about  them. 

"§.  Was  not  the  ultimate  question  what  you  knew  about 
the  transaction  ?  A.  That  was  a  separate  question. 

"(J).  Was  not  that  the  question  which  you  were  replying 
to  before  the  public  ?  A.  I  will  deal  with  that  in  a  moment. 
If  you  observe,  my  language  is  different  in  the  case  of  South 
Carolina,  and  of  Florida. 

"§.  But  it  is  a  difference  that  one  would  not  notice  until 
after  this  discussion  ?  A.  I  cannot  help  your  understanding 
of  the  language.  The  language  is  used  with  perfect  accu 
racy  and  perfect  truth.  The  proposition  was  this  :  I  could 
not  say  I  knew  nothing  about  any  negotiation  in  South 
Carolina,  for  I  knew  a  very  little.  I  knew  nothing  that 
was  contained  in  any  of  these  telegrams ;  I  knew  no  details 
of  any  of  these  negotiations ;  but  I  did  know  there  had 
been  an  offer,  and  I  knew  the  offer  had  been  refused 
through  my  intervention.  That  is  all  I  knew.  I  did  not 
know  that  there  had  been  any  further  negotiations  than  to 
receive  the  offer  and  finally  to  refuse  it.  I  did  not  know 
that  there  had  been  any  offer  in  Florida  ;  so  the  language  of 
the  statement  had  to  be  different. 

"§.  That  is,  you  were  avoiding  a  misstatement  on 
account  of  certain  facts  which  you  knew,  and  which  at  the 
same  time  you  knew  the  public  did  not  know.  Isn't  that 
true?  A.  Certainly. 

f(Q.  And  so  you  made  your  denial  in  such  shape  and 
form  that  it  would  avoid  this  fact  when  it  became  known, 
did  you?  A.  I  made  my  denial  — 

*Q.  (Interrupting.)  Consistent  with  this  fact  when  it 
should  become  known?  A.  Strictly  consistent  with  the 
truth. 

"§.    But  you  say,  'No  one  of  such  telegrams,  either  in 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  199 

cipher  or  translated,  was  ever  shown  to  me,  or  its  contents 
made  known  to  me.'  Were  you  not  conscious,  then,  at 
that  time,  that  that  matter  which  you  were  explaining  to 
the  public  was  not  the  telegrams  after  all,  but  the  negotia 
tions?  A.  I  cover  that  in  my  next  sentence. 

"Q.  But  you  don't  cover  it  in  this?  A.  I  did  not  do 
everything  in  one  sentence.  Be  good  enough  to  read  the 
next  sentence. 

"§.  Yes,  I  am  very  familiar  with  it.  Why  did  not  you, 
Governor  Tilden,  when  you  came  to  make  this  answer  to 
the  public,  say  frankly  that  you  knew  of  the  transaction, 
so  far  as  you  did  know  of  it,  and  that  you  then  stamped  it 
out  instead  of  using  language  which,  as  you  see,  might  con 
vey  to  the  public  the  impression  that  you  not  only  knew 
nothing  about  the  telegrams,  but  nothing  about  the  trans 
action  itself?  A.  I  do  not  see  anything  of  the  kind.  On 
the  contrary,  any  intelligent  man  who  understands  the 
English  language  would  understand  that. 

"  Q.  In  the  light  of  the  present  testimony,  do  you  mean  ? 
A.  Without  reference  to  that. 

"Q.  Would  anybody  infer  from  this  letter  that  you  had 
any  information  with  regard  to  the  transaction  at  all?  A. 
No  man  would  infer  that  I  had  no  knowledge  of  the  offers. 
There  might  have  been  a  thousand  offers  made  without  my 
knowledge. 

"  Q.  Did  you  intend  to  convey  the  impression  that  no 
offers  had  been  made  to  you?  A.  I  did  not;  I  intended  to 
avoid  that  assumption. 

"§.  Then  why  did  you  not  frankly  state  what  was  the 
fact?  A.  Because,  if  there  had  been  a  hundred  men  talk 
ing  to  me  about  such  transactions,  suggesting  and  advising 
them,  I  was  under  no  obligation,  and  had  no  occasion,  to 
state  it  to  the  public. 

"  Q.  But  there  were  not  a  hundred  men  ;  there  was  one 
particular  transaction  to  which  your  attention  had  been  di 
rected  by  these  '  Tribune '  disclosures.  Why  did  not  you 
mention  that  one  transaction?  If  you  intended  to  deal 
frankly  with  the  public,  why  did  you  not  mention  that  one 
transaction  ?  A.  I  had  not  seen  any  of  these  parties,  and 
did  not  know  whether  the  despatches  were  true  or  not.  I 
did  not  know  anything  about  them.  When  I  drew  this  card 
I  had  not  seen  a  human  being  with  regard  to  them.  I  had 
not  seen  Mr.  Weed ;  I  had  not  seen  Mr.  Pelton.  I  was 


200  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

not  going  to  inculpate  them  on  subjects  which  I  did  not 
know  anything  about. 

"§.  But  at  that  time  you  did  not  know  that  Mr.  Pelton 
had  gone  to  Baltimore  to  engage  in  a  transaction  of  that 
kind?  A.  I  did  not  say  that. 

"§.  Why  did  you  conceal  from  the  public  your  knowl 
edge  of  that  fact?  A.  I  knew  only  that  Mr.  Pelton  had 
gone  there  to  receive  a  proposition. 

"§.  Why  did  you  keep  that  fact  from  the  public?  That 
would  not  incriminate  anybody  except  those  whom  you 
knew  deserved  to  be  incriminated.  A.  I  did  not  know 
that. 

"Q.  Why  did  you  not  state  that?  A.  It  was  not  neces 
sary  ;  it  was  not  pertinent. 

"$.  Was  it  not  necessary  for  the  information  of  the 
community?  You  undertook  to  inform  the  community  as 
to  what  you  knew  about  this  matter.  Now,  undertaking  to 
inform  them  by  sitting  down  and  writing  that  letter  on  the 
subject,  how  did  it  happen  that  you  omitted  this  fact,  of 
which  you  knew?  That  is  what  I  want  to  get  at.  A. 
Because  that  fact  was  not  pertinent  to  my  discussion. 

"Q.  Was  it  not  pertinent  to  the  information  which  you 
were  giving  to  the  public  as  to  your  knowledge  of  this  sub 
ject?  A.  It  was  not  pertinent  to  the  things  I  undertook 
to  state. 

"§.  That  is,  among  the  things  you  undertook  to  state 
this  was  not?  A.  No. 

"  Q.  You  say  that  the  transaction  of  the  Board  of  Caiv 
vassers  to  Florida  was  mentioned  to  you  casually,  as  a  past 
event,  accompanied  by  the  statement  that  the  oifer  had 
been  rejected?  A.  Yes. 

"Q.    By  whom  was  that  made ?      A.    By  Mr.  Marble. 

"Q.  Why  did  you  not,  in  your  card,  inform  the  public 
who  stated  that  to  you?  A.  It  was  not  necessary. 

"(J).  Did  the  non-necessity  of  withholding  that  informa 
tion  arise  from  the  fact  that  on  the  face  of  those  despatches 
Mr.  Marble  was  very  severely  incriminated,  and  your  own 
statement  that  he  had  mentioned  it  to  you  would  tend  to 
confirm  the  public  impression  of  that  transaction?  A. 
Not  in  the  least;  I  should  not  have  hesitated  to  put  his 
name  in. 

"Q.    You  cannot  state  why  you  did  not ?     A.    No. 

"  Q.    Why  was  it  omitted  ?     It  looks  to  me  as  if  it  had 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  201 

been  studiously  omitted.  What  have  you  to  say  with  re 
gard  to  that?  A.  It  was  not. 

"$.  You  did  not  keep  it  out  on  purpose,  or  in  further 
ance  of  any  design  that  you  then  had  in  your  own  mind  ? 
A.  No. 

(fQ.  Nor  did  you  keep  out  this  Baltimore  transaction 
in  furtherance  of  any  design  that  you  had  in  your  own 
mind?  A.  The  Baltimore  transaction  stands  on  a  different 
basis,  and  it  was  not  consummated. 

"§.  That  you  did  intentionally  keep  out?  A.  I  did  not 
intentionally  keep  it  out ;  I  had  no  intention  of  putting  it  in. 

"§.  Did  you  not  very  carefully  draw  these  sentences 
so  as  to  avoid  coming  in  conflict  with  that  fact  after  it  came 
out,  if  it  should  come  out?  A.  No;  I  drew  these  sen 
tences  very  carefully  so  as  to  conform  to  the  exact  truth. 

"§.  Not  only  to  the  exact  truth  so  far  as  the  public 
knew  it,  but  also  to  the  exact  truth  as  far  as  you  knew  it? 
A.  Yes. 

"§.  Did  you  have  any  interview  with  Mr.  Weed  before 
he  left  for  South  Carolina?  A.  I  did  not;  I  never  saw 
him  after  the  election  until  after  he  got  back  from  South 
Carolina. 

"§.  Do  you  remember  having  an  interview  with  him  at 
any  bank?  A.  I  do  not. 

"§.  Nor  any  conversation  with  him  at  any  bank?  A. 
I  do  not. 

"§.  Do  you  recollect  the  bank  that  was  named  in  con 
nection  with  the  Oregon  affair?  A.  The  Third  National? 

"  Q.  I  think  that  is  it ;  Mr.  Jordan's  bank  ;  the  bank  that 
kindly  advanced,  on  the  suggestion  of  Colonel  Pelton,  or 
of  somebody  else,  eight  thousand  dollars  for  legitimate 
legal  expenses  in  Oregon.  Did  you  have  an  interview 
with  him  at  that  bank  ?  A.  I  do  not  think  I  did ;  I  do 
not  remember  any. 

*(Q.  Can  you  tell  us  whether  you  did  or  did  not? 
A.  You  mean  at  what  time? 

"§.  With  Mr.  Smith  Weed,  prior  to  his  departure  to 
Florida,  after  the  election.  A.  I  do  not  think  I  did. 

"Q.  Can  you  not  put  it  any  stronger  than  that  you  do 
not  think  you  did?  A.  I  do  not  believe  that  I  did. 

"Q.  Don't  you  know  whether  you  did  or  not?  Be 
frank  with  us.  A.  I  am  perfectly  frank  with  you,  sir;  I 
have  no  recollection  or  belief  of  any  such  interview. 


202  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE 'N 

"§.  Did  you  ever  see  him  there?  A.  I  do  not  recol 
lect  ;  I  may  have  seen  him  there. 

"§.  Do  I  understand  you  to  say  that  you  have  no  recol 
lection,  distinct  and  positive,  of  meeting  him  there  at  any 
time  ?  A.  I  do  not  remember  meeting  him  there  at  any 
particular  time. 

"Q.  Do  you  remember  meeting  him  there  at  all,  at  any 
time?  A.  I  have  no  distinct  recollection  of  it,  though 
very  possibly  I  may  have  met  him  there  at  some  time. 

"§.  Did  you  not  have  a  long  conversation  with  him  prior 
to  his  departure  for  Florida,  at  the  Third  National  Bank? 
A.  Florida? 

"Q.  North  Carolina  or  South  Carolina?  A.  I  don't 
think  I  did. 

"§.  Can  you  not  state  it  any  more  positively  than  that? 
A.  I  feel  sure  that  I  did  not  see  him  at  all. 

"  Q.  You  feel  sure  that  you  did  not  see  him  and  did  not 
have  the  conversation  with  him  to  which  I  alluded?  A. 
Yes. 

"  Q.  Did  I  understand  you  to  say  that  as  to  Florida  you 
did  not  know  that  there  had  been  an  offer?  A.  Until 
after  the  Gth  of  December. 

"  Q.  About  what  time  was  it  that  Mr.  Marble  communi 
cated  this  fact  to  you?  A.  I  cannot  state  definitely. 

"Q.  But  I  understood  you  to  say  that  it  was  before  the 
publication  of  his  '  Ark  and  Shekinah  '  letter?  A.  Yes. 

"$.  Did  Mr.  Marble  consult  you  with  regard  to  the 
publication  of  that  celebrated  piece  of  rhetoric?  A.  He 
probably  talked  to  me  on  the  subject. 

"§.  Did  he  read  to  you  any  of  the  sentences  in  it? 
A.  I  think  very  likely  he  may  have  done  so. 

"Q.  The  publication  was  with  your  assent?  A.  Not 
with  my  assent,  nor  with  my  disapproval. 

"Q.    Nor  with  your  disapproval ?     A.    No. 

*Q.  Did  you  make  any  comments,  after  your  knowledge 
of  the  Baltimore  transaction,  that  it  was  rather  a  harsh 
sort  of  letter  for  him  to  write?  A.  I  did  not. 

"Q.  Nor  any  suggestion  that  there  was  anything  hypo 
critical  about  it?  A.  No,  sir;  there  was  not,  so  far  as  I 
knew. 

"$.  You  had  not  then  arrived  at  that  full  knowledge 
which  you  possess  since  the  publication  of  the  '  Tribune ' 
despatches?  A.  No. 


UNIVERSITY    I 

OF  J 

TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  203 

"  Mr.  HISCOCK.  —  Do  I  understand  you  to  say  that  you 
saw  the  telegram  to  George  W.  Smith,  dated  November  27, 
from  Tallahassee?  A.  I  do  not  remember  anything  about 
it. 

"§.  Have  you  any  doubt  that  you  did  see  it,  it  having 
been  addresed  to  your  private  secretary  at  Gramercy  park  ? 
A.  I  do  not  know  that  any  such  telegram  existed  or  was 
ever  received  ;  I  don't  remember  anything  about  it. 

"  Q.  Do  you  remember  the  contents  of  it  as  it  has  been 
read  to  you  here  by  Mr.  Reed?  A.  I  remember  seeing  it 
here. 

"  Mr.  HISCOCK  (reading) .  — 'It  has  been  suggested  from 
here  to  Governor  of  Oregon  to  refrain  from  issuing  cer 
tificate  in  favor  of  ineligible  elector  until  advised  thereon. 
Why  not  obtain  and  telegraph  him  O'Conor's  opinion? 
See  my  despatch  to  Spain.'  Have  you  no  recollections  of 
seeing  that  at  all?  A.  I  have  not;  I  may  have  seen  it. 

*'Q.  Have  you  any  doubt  that  a  despatch  of  that  kind, 
addressed  to  your  private  secretary,  was  shown  to  you? 
A.  I  think  if  he  received  it  he  probably  showed  it  to  me. 

"§.  In  that  despatch  occurs  this  phrase:  r  See  my 
despatch  to  Spain.'  If  you  saw  that  despatch,  would  not 
the  phrase  have  attracted  your  attention?  A.  It  might. 

"Q.  Have  you  any  doubt  that  it  would?  A.  It  may 
have  done  so. 

"§.  I  ask  you  whether  the  phrase  in  that  despatch, 
'  See  my  despatch  to  Spain,'  would  not  have  attracted 
your  attention?  A.  Perhaps  it  would,  and  perhaps  it 
would  not. 

"Q.  You  felt  intensely  interested  over  the  result  in 
Florida?  A.  I  felt  interested,  of  course  ;  not  intensely. 

"Q.  You  felt  interested  as  a  presidential  candidate,  and 
as  the  representative  of  your  party,  did  you  not?  A.  I  did. 

"Q.  And  you  were  watching  the  proceedings  in  those 
States  with  very  great  interest?  A.  I  was  watching  the 
proceedings  with  a  certain  amount  of  interest. 

"§.  Do  I  infer  from  that  that  you  were  watching  the 
proceedings  with  indifference  ?  A .  Not  absolute  indiffer 
ence. 

"Q.  Did  not  you  keep  yourself  advised,  so  far  as  you 
were  able,  as  to  the  steps  that  we  re  being  taken  there?  A. 
I  did  not  occupy  myself  about  things  which  I  knew  I  could 
not  control. 


204  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"Q.  Were  you  not  sufficiently  interested  to  keep  your 
self  advised  as  to  what  was  going  on  and  the  steps  that 
were  being  taken  there?  A.  Not  very  fully. 

"  Q.  If  a  despatch  were  shown  you  containing  the  phrase, 
f  See  my  despatch  to  Spain,'  would  not  the  very  language 
of  the  phrase  and  the  words  that  were  employed  in  con 
nection  with  it,  one  of  them  being  a  cipher  word,  have 
attracted  your  attention?  A.  It  might  have  done  so. 

"Q.  And  especially  a  despatch  of  that  kind,  coming 
from  such  a  discreet,  trusted,  and  influential  member  of  the 
party  as  Manton  Marble.  Have  you  any  doubt  that  it 
would  have  attracted  you*  attention,  coming  from  him? 
A.  I  do  not  think  it  at  all  certain  I  should  have  paid  much 
attention  to  it. 

"Q.  Now,  preceding  that  despatch  and  the  one  to  which 
it  must  refer  is  this  despatch :  '  You  are  imperilling  result 
here  by  causing  divided  counsels  and  neglecting  to  answer 
telegrams.  I  advise  that  you  find  one  person  to  trust,  and 
then  trust  him  for  at  least  one  calendar  week,  —  possibly 
two.  I  will  stand  in  nobody's  way,  and  do  my  best  to 
transfer  to  him  authority.  About  one  hundred  majority  on 
certified  copies ;  Republicans  claim  same  upon  returns. 
Rome  needless  now ;  should  be  recalled.' 

"  Mr.  TILDEN.  —  Whom  does  Rome  mean  ? 

"  Mr.  HISCOCK.  — I  do  not  know. 

"Mr.  TILDEN.  — You  ought  to  know. 

"  Mr.  HISCOCK  continued  reading :  r  Rome  needless  now ; 
should  be  recalled.  Parris  and  detectives  always  useless  ; 
ditto  Woolley,  here  as  in  Lousiana  a  nuisance  and  imped 
iment,  trusted  by  nobody.  I  decline  to  commit  Tilden  with 
men  so  indiscreet.  Smith  concurs  in  all  aforesaid.  Ses 
sion  begun.' 

"Q.  Have  you  any  recollection  of  having  ever  seen  that 
despatch?  A.  I  know  that  I  never  did. 

"§.  Have  you  at  anytime  during  the  progress  of  the 
contest  in  Florida  understood  that  upon  certified  copies  of 
the  returns  the  Democrats  had,  or  that  you  had,  one  hun 
dred  majority  for  your  election?  A.  Ninety-three  or 
ninety-five. 

"  Q.  Then  you  did  understand  at  one  time  that  upon  cer 
tified  copies  of  the  returns  the  Democrats  had  the  majority 
on  the  Tilden  electoral  ticket  of  from  ninety-three  to  one 
hundred?  A.  Including  Baker  county,  undoubtedly. 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  205 

"§.  Do  you  know  how  that  information  was  conveyed 
here?  A.  I  do  not;  I  think  I  saw  it  in  the  newspapers. 

"  Q.  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  had  no  earlier  informa 
tion  than  that  which  appeared  in  the  newspapers  upon  that 
subject?  A.  I  do  not  believe  that  I  had. 

"§.  And  this  despatch  you  are  entirely  confident  that 
you  never  saw,  although  it  was  a  despatch  sent  to  Gramercy 
park?  A.  I  know  that  I  never  saw  it. 

"Q.  And  do  you  believe  that  any  such  despatch  as  that 
was  ever  received  at  Gramercy  park ?  A.  I  do  not. 

"(J).  And  you  believe  that  none  of  your  friends  at  that 
time  would  have  taken  the  liberty  of  intercepting  any  de 
spatches  which  were  sent  to  Gramercy  park,  and  upon  a 
subject  on  which  you  were  certainly  as  vitally  interested 
as  any  one  else?  A.  The  despatch  was  not  addressed 
to  me. 

"Q.  No,  it  was  not  addressed  to  you;  but  it,  or  one 
other,  is  the  despatch  which  is  referred  to  in  the  despatch 
of  November  27,  which  was  addressed  to  George  W.  Smith. 
A.  I  understand  that  the  despatches  addressed  to  Colonel 
Pelton,  at  the  house  in  Gramercy  park,  were  delivered  by 
the  telegraph  people,  by  standing  order,  at  the  committee- 
rooms. 

"§.  I  understand  that  either  this  or  a  subsequent  de 
spatch,  which  I  will  soon  read,  is  the  one  referred  to  in  the 
phrase,  f  See  my  despatch  to  Spain.'  This  is  the  one. 
There  is  a  despatch,  which  I  have  been  calling  your  atten 
tion  to,  addressed  to  George  W.  Smith,  which  has  in  it  the 
phrase,  '  See  my  despatch  to  Spain.'  A.  What  despatch 
is  that? 

"Q.  The  one  which  I  have  been  reading,  or  one  other 
which  I  will  read,  must  be  that  despatch.  I  will  now  read 
the  second  one  to  which  that  phrase  may  refer : 

"  To  COLONEL  PELTON,  No.  25  Gramercy  Park,  New  York : 

"Please  yourself  about  economies  suggested;  Coyle  exceedingly  useful 
hitherto.  You  did  not  answer  my  inquiry  about  Parris,  and  only  mention 
him  at  this  late  date;  that  promotes  unity  of  action,  I  suppose.  Mention 
names  of  Florida  friends  when  you  wish  to  learn  how  much  weight  their 
several  requests  deserve.  Fox  impedes  daily;  it  is  no  relief  that  you 
assume  responsibility  for  difficulties  he  makes.  Do  not  fail  to  read  mes 
sage  to  Smith,  15  and  20  cipher.  M.  M. 

"§.    Did  you  see  that  despatch ?     A.    I  did  not. 
"Q.    You  never  saw  that  despatch?     A.    No,  sir. 


206  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"Q.  Then,  if  I  understand  you,  you  took  no  steps  to  see 
the  despatch  which  is  described  in  this  phrase,  '  See  my 
despatch  to  Spain,'  and  you  have  no  recollection  of  its 
ever  having  been  shown  to  you,  although  the  despatch  re 
ferring  to  it  was  directed  to  your  own  private  secretary? 
A.  I  have  no  recollection  of  taking  any  steps  to  see  any 
of  these  other  despatches,  if  I  saw  this  one. 

"Q.  How  old  a  person  was  George  W.  Smith?  A. 
About  twenty-five  or  thirty. 

"§.  You  have  no  idea  that  he  would  have  taken  the 
responsibility  of  intercepting  or  failing  to  exhibit  to  you 
any  despatch  which  he  received?  A.  No. 

"Q.    You  have  no  idea  of  that  kind  ?     A.    No. 

"$.  You  have  no  idea  but  that  a  despatch  which  was 
sent  to  him  in  cipher,  and  which  he  could  not  understand, 
or  which  he  could  not  read,  if  he  had  procured  it  to  be 
translated,  that  he  would  have  furnished  you  the  transla 
tion?  A.  I  should  think  he  would. 

"Q.  He  resides  here  in  New  York  city  at  this  time,  as 
I  understand?  A.  Yes  ;  he  was  my  personal  secretary. 

"Q.    Is  he  now?     A.    He  is  now,  at  this  time. 

"  Q.  Do  I  understand  you  to  say  that  the  first  intimation 
that  you  had  of  the  closeness  of  the  contest  in  Florida  was 
through  the  newspapers?  A.  I  do  not  remember  what 
my  first  information  was. 

"$.  You  have  no  recollection  upon  that  subject?  A.  I 
think  if  you  will  look  at  the  newspapers  of  the  same  date 
as  the  despatch,  you  will  find  the  same  information.  The 
newspapers  generally  get  ahead  of  private  despatches. 

"Q.  I  find  this  despatch  sent  from  New  York  to  both 
Colonel  Woolley  and  Mr.  Manton  Marble,  directed  to  them 
both  at  Tallahassee  :  f  Reported  here  that  board  have  given 
us  one  vote.'  Do  you  remember  hearing  that?  A.  I  do 
not. 

"  Q.  Do  you  remember  hearing  any  rumor  of  that  kind  ? 
A.  I  do  not. 

"§.  This  is  a  despatch  which  was  sent  by  Colonel 
Pelton  to  both  of  these  gentlemen  as  to  a  rumor  which  had 
reached  New  York,  and  which  they  had  received,  that  your 
electoral  ticket  had  received  one  vote ;  and  you  never 
heard  that?  —  that  one  of  your  electors  was  elected?  A.  I 
do  not  remember  ever  hearing  that. 

"§.    Do  you  remember  ever  having  heard  it  even  sug- 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  207 

fested?     A.    No.     You  mention  Mr.  Woolley;  I  had  no 
nowledge  or  information  of  his  having  been  there. 
"Q.    I  am  only  examining  you  now  upon  the  question 
of  whether  so  important  a  fact  as  that  contained  in  a  de 
spatch  requiring  an  answer,  addressed  to  two  gentlemen  in 
Florida,  that  it  was  rumored  here  in  New  York  that  one  of 
Mr.  Tilden's  electors  was  elected  —  whether  you  did  not 
learn  that?     A.    I  think  I  did  not,  as  far  as  I  remember. 

"§.  Can  you  say  that  you  did  not  learn  it,  or  do  you 
say  that  it  is  very  likely  that  you  have  forgotten  it,  if  you 
did  not  know  it?  A.  I  say  that  I  have  not  the  slightest 
recollection  of  ever  hearing  it. 

"§.  There  was  this  despatch,  dated  December  4,  of 
which  I  have  only  read  a  part.  I  will  read  the  whole  de 
spatch  : 

"  Reported  here  that  board  have  given  us  one  vote.  If  so,  you  will  not 
need  to  use  acceptance.  Advise  fully. 

You  never  heard  of  any  such  despatch  as  that  having  been 
sent  to  these  men?  A.  I  never  did. 

"§.  During  this  canvass,  who  here  in  New  York  did 
you  understand  were  in  consultation  with  these  gentlemen 
in  South  Carolina  and  Florida  by  telegraph?  A.  I  sup 
pose  the  committee  or  some  of  their  agents. 

" Q.  Didn't  you  advise  yourself  on  the  subject  ?  A.  I  did 
not  particularly. 

"§.  Did  you  not  learn  the  fact — was  it  not  communi 
cated  to  you — who  it  was  at  this  end  of  the  line  that  was  in 
consultation  with  the  gentlemen  who  were  sent  to  South 
Carolina  and  Florida  ?  A.  I  did  not  consider  that  anybody 
was  there  especially  in  consultation. 

"§.  What  Democratic  gentlemen  were  there  here  in  New 
York  that  you  understood  that  the  visiting  statesmen  in 
South  Carolina  and  Florida  were  in  communication  with  ? 
A.  I  assumed  that  they  were  in  communication  with  the 
National  Democratic  Committee,  or  with  their  subordinates. 

"§.  That  is,  you  assumed  that  the  Democratic  National 
Committee,  or  some  members  of  it,  were  here  in  New  York, 
and  in  consultation  with  and  being  advised  of  the  steps 
which  were  being  taken  by  these  gentlemen  in  South 
Carolina?  A.  I  supposed  that  some  consultations  and 
communications  existed ;  I  did  not  suppose  an  extensive 
consultation  did  exist  or  could  exist. 


208  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

"Q.  Did  you  understand  at  any  time  that  legal  proceed 
ings  were  being  taken  in  South  Carolina  to  restrain  the 
Returning  Board  in  South  Carolina?  A.  I  did. 

f(Q.  Who  communicated  that  fact  to  you?  A.  I  do  not 
remember. 

"  Q.  Do  you  remember  whether  it  was  communicated  in 
cipher?  A.  Not  to  me  in  cipher.  Nothing  was  ever  com 
municated  to  me  in  cipher. 

"  Q.  Did  you  understand  during  the  progress  of  this  can 
vass  that  proceedings  were  being  instituted  (and  success 
fully  instituted),  restraining  the  Governor  of  Florida  from 
undertaking  this  canvass  ?  A.  I  had  general  information  on 
that  subject ;  I  do  not  know  that  I  had  anything  more  than 
I  got  from  the  newspapers.  That  proceeding  was  not  dic 
tated  from  New  York,  so  far  as  I  know;  certainly  not 
by  me. 

"§.  Did  you  understand  that  that  was  advised  by  the 
visiting  statesmen  to  the  South,  who  were  in  Florida  at 
that  time?  A.  I  think  it  was  very  likely  done  by  local 
lawyers. 

"  Q.  Did  you  not  understand  that  there  was  a  strong  array 
of  counsel  from  the  North  in  the  South?  A.  Yes. 

"§.  On  both  sides?     A.  Yes,  sir. 

"Q.  From  whom  did  you  understand  that  fact?  Who 
were  they?  A.  I  understood  that  Mr.  George  W.  Biddle, 
one  of  the  first  lawyers  in  the  United  States,  was  there  ;  and 
Mr.  David  Sellers,  of  Philadelphia,  Mr.  Malcolm  Hay, 
and  others. 

"  Q.  Did  you  not  understand  that  there  was  a  large  array 
of  counsel  from  outside  of  the  State  who  were  in  charge  of 
the  scheme  of  procuring  returns  from  the  different  canvass 
ing  boards  scattered  throughout  the  State  of  Florida ;  and 
that  there  was  some  confusion  existing  with  reference  to 
Louisiana  and  South  Carolina ;  and  that  these  three  Southern 
States  at  that  time  were  supposed  to  be  very  poor  indeed, 
and  the  Democratic  party  very  poor ;  and  did  you  not  under 
stand  that  there  was  somebody  here  in  New  York  who  was 
looking  after  the  expenses  of  the  gentlemen  who  were  sent 
there,  and  after  the  expense  of  sending  out  gentlemen  to 

fet  in  these  returns ?     A.  I  understood  nothing  about  it; 
supposed   that  the  committee  would  take  care  of  their 
expenses. 

"§.  But  you  did  not  trouble  yourself  to  inquire    what 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  209 

members  of  the  committee,  if  any,  were  here  ?  A.  I  did 
not ;  they  changed  from  day  to  day. 

"  Q.  Did  you  understand  at  that  time  that  substantially 
the  responsible  head  of  the  committee  —  that  is,  the  one 
who  seemed  to  act  for  the  committee  —  was  Colonel 
Pelton?  A.  No,  I  did  not,  and  it  was  not  the  fact. 

"Q.  Is  it  not  the  fact  that  substantially  all  of  the  de 
spatches  which  passed  between  these  visiting  statesmen  in 
these  several  States  and  New  York  were  addressed  to 
Colonel  Pelton?  A.  I  do  not  know  how  that  is. 

"§.  Did  you  ever  investigate  that  question?  A.  I 
never  did. 

"Q.  So  far  as  Mr.  Marble  was  concerned,  instead  of 
communicating  with  Mr.  Hewitt  or  Mr.  Cooper,  he  ad 
dressed  his  despatches  to  Colonel  Pelton  ?  A.  Mr.  Marble 
is  one  man. 

"  Q.  Did  you  not  understand  that  all  the  gentlemen  in 
Florida  addressed  their  despatches  to  Colonel  I3elton?  A. 
I  never  knew  to  whom  they  addressed  their  despatches. 

"  Q.  Did  you  not  understand  the  fact  to  be  that  all  the 
despatches  sent  by  them  from  South  Carolina  were  sent  to 
Colonel  Pelton?  A.  I  knew  nothing  about  it  until  their 
publication. 

"Q.  Does  it  not  strike  you  now  as  singular,  with  the 
light  you  now  have,  as  a  remarkable  circumstance,  that  all 
of  these  visiting  statesmen  held  communication  with  New 
York  through  despatches  addressed  to  Colonel  Pelton,  and 
to  him  only?  A.  I  do  not  know  that  that  is  the  fact. 

"$.  Do  you  know  that  that  is  not  the  fact?  A.  I  do 
not ;  Mr.  Hewitt  was  the  chairman  of  the  committee,  and 
they  had  an  executive  committee,  and  some  of  the  members 
of  the  committee  were  there  almost  every  day. 

"Q.  Do  you  know  that  fact,  or  is  that  simply  what  you 
understood?  A.  That  is  simply  what  I  understood. 

"§.  Did  you  make  inquiry?  A.  I  don't  believe  I  did  ; 
I  think  the  information  came  to  me  casually. 

"Q.  When  Colonel  Pelton  returned  from  Baltimore  I 
suppose  that  you  saw  him  immediately?  A.  I  saw  him 
the  next  day. 

"Q.  He  had  been  to  some  extent  dependent  upon  you,  I 
suppose  ;  that  is,  as  a  member  of  your  family,  and  to  some 
extent  provided  with  a  position  for  the  support  and  main 
tenance  of  himself?  In  other  words,  you  were  a  patron  of 

VOL.  II.-ll 


210  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

his?  A.  Tosome  extent;  he  had  a  business  of  his  own, 
but  was  unfortunate  in  it. 

"§.  You  learned  from  Mr.  Cooper,  and  you  could  have 
learned  from  Colonel  Pelton,  that  he  had  been  to  Baltimore 
for  the  purpose  of  consummating  a  plan  for  a  purchase,  by 
the  action  of  the  Canvassing  Board  of  South  Carolina, 
which  would  ensure  the  election  of  the  Tilden  electors  in 
that  State.  Did  it  not  occur  to  you,  upon  that  being  com 
municated  to  you,  that  you  ought  immediately  to  find  out 
in  what  relation  he  stood  to  the  Democratic  National  Ex 
ecutive  Committee?  A.  Your  question  assumes  more  than 
is  true.  I  did  not  hear  that  he  had  gone  to  consummate 
an  arrangement ;  I  only  heard  that  he  had  gone  there  to 
receive  an  offer. 

"§.  Is  there  any  difference  between  the  way  that  you 
state  it  and  the  way  that  I  stated  it?  A.  Considerable. 

"  Q.  Would  you  not  infer  from  his  having  communicated 
to  Mr.  Edward  Cooper  that  he  would  probably  draw  upon 
him  the  next  day  for  from  sixty  thousand  to  eighty  thou 
sand  dollars,  and  that  he  had  gone  to  Baltimore  to  meet  Mr. 
Smith  M.  Weed  and  another  gentleman,  who  had  come 
from  South  Carolina  to  meet  him  there,  —  would  you  not 
fairly  infer  from  that  that  he  had  gone  there  to  consummate 
a  purchase?  A.  I  did  not  understand  that  he  said  he 
would  draw. 

"§.  Did  you  understand  from  Mr.  Cooper  the  sum  of 
money  which  he  stated?  A.  I  presume  I  did. 

"§.  Do  you  recollect  the  amount?  A.  I  do  not  know 
that  I  do  ;  I  understood  that  he  had  gone  there  in  order  to 
receive  or  to  look  into  a  proposition. 

"§.  Now,  understanding  that  he  had  been  indiscreet 
enough  to  go  to  Baltimore  even  to  look  into  a  proposition 
for  the  sale  of  the  certificate  to  the  electors  of  that  State, 
did  you  not  think  that  you  were  called  upon  to  ascertain 
his  relations  to  the  national  committee,  and  to  ascertain 
how  far  he  was  committing  that  body,  and  how  far  he  was 
committing  himself?  A.  I  thought  the  best  way  to  deal 
with  such  a  transaction  was  to  stop  it ;  not  only  to  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it  myself,  but  to  stop  everybody  else 
from  having  anything  to  do  with  it.  I  think  the  same 
thing  in  Florida  would  have  been  better  than  what  was 
done.  I  think  instead  of  appointing  Mr.  Xoyes,  who  did 
not  stop  it,  minister  to  France,  and  McLin  who  did  it  — 


TILDE  NrS    TESTIMONY  211 

"§.  Don't  let  vis  go  off  on  to  that  question.  A.  Let  me 
illustrate  it.  [After  a  pause.]  Mr.  Hiscock  is  evidently 
trying  to  probe  and  search  my  moral  standard. 

"  Q.  No,  I  am  not  addressing  myself  to  that  at  all ;  I  am 
only  investigating  the  relations  which  existed  between  you 
and  Colonel  Pelton,  so  far  as  you  were  committed  by  his 
action.  A.  The  object  is  to  impute  to  me  some  failure  of 
duty.  If  I  answer  that  question,  I  propose  to  answer  it 
fully ;  I  propose  to  raise  the  standard  as  high  as  I  can,  and 
we  will  see  whether  the  other  gentlemen  adopt  it. 

"§.  It  seems  to  me  that,  in  this  examination,  the  true 
way  to  answer  a  question  is  to  answer  it,  so  far  as  you  can, 
directly,  and  not  to  seek  to  answer  it  by  assailing  any  ono 
else.  A.  I  do  not  desire  to  assail  anybody;  but  when  a 
sublimated  standard  of  morals  is  set  up,  I  propose  to 
analyze  it,  and  to  see  whether  the  party  that  set  it  up  stands 
up  to  it. 

"§.  Well,  now  I  will  call  your  attention  to  another  an 
swer  you  have  made  here.  You  have  said  that  if  you  had 
entertained  any  idea  —  I  am  giving  your  idea  as  conveyed 
by  your  answer,  and  not  your  words — that  if  you  had  con 
ceived  the  idea  of  influencing  these  boards  venally,  or  by 
venal  considerations,  the  last  person  in  the  world  that  you 
would  have  chosen  for  that  mission  would  have  been 
Colonel  Pelton.  Xow  I  ask  you  to  bear  that  answer  in 
your  mind  for  a  moment,  and  then  to  state  why,  after  you 
learned  of  his  visit  to  Baltimore,  you  did  not  deem  it 
proper,  and  perhaps  your  duty,  to  call  the  attention  of  Mr. 
Edward  Cooper  or  of  Mr.  Hewitt  (both  of  them  distin 
guished  and  very  able  men)  to  the  fact  that  they  must  take 
charge  of  this  matter ;  that  Colonel  Pelton  must  be  left  out 
of  the  correspondence ;  and  that  they  must  give  it  their 
personal  attention,  lest  you  and  the  Democratic  party 
should  be  embarrassed,  and  perhaps  scandalized,  by  the 
action  of  Colonel  Pelton.  A.  In  the  first  place,  I  supposed 
that  those  gentlemen  were  giving  it  their  personal  attention. 
Those  gentlemen  had  the  real  power,  and  Pelton  had  not ; 
they  Avere  able  to  supervise  and  control  it  whenever  they 
chose.  Mr.  Cooper,  in  particular,  had  custody  of  the 
money,  without  which  Pelton  could  not  involve  the  com 
mittee  in  the  expenditure  of  a  cent.  In  the  next  place,  Mr. 
Cooper  was  the  gentleman  from  whom  I  derived  my  in 
formation  of  what  was  done  in  Baltimore,  and  from  him 


212  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

exclusively.  Mr.  Hewitt  was  his  brother-in-law.  I  did  not 
think  that  they  needed  any  warning  on  the  subject.  In  the 
third  place,  I  regarded  the  Baltimore  thing  as  very  foolish 
and  very  wrong,  but  still  as  an  inchoate  transaction.  By 
my  intervention  it  was  stopped  while  there  was  a  locus 
pemtenlice.  Now,  the  civil  law  does  not  recognize  purposes 
until  they  embody  themselves  in  action ;  the  church  pun 
ishes  those  purposes  merely  as  sinful  thoughts.  Pelton 
had  not,  so  far  as  I  knew,  done  anything  except  to  receive 
a  proposition  from  a  set  of  Republican  electors  to  sell  the 
certificates.  There  was  no  consummation  of  the  plan  ;  the 
thing  perished  in  embryo  ;  and  it  did  not  strike  me  as  being 
of  such  enormous  importance  as  it  would,  had  there  been 
any  possibility  of  the  thing  succeeding,  or  of  any  similar 
transaction  succeeding.  I  say  this  without  meaning  in  the 
least  to  excuse  Pelton.  for  I  do  not  mean  to  excuse  him. 
The  atmosphere  at  that  time  was  filled  with  rumors  and  as 
sertions  of  the  venality  and  fraud  of  these  returning  boards 
in  those  three  States  and  of  their  offers.  I  declare  before 
God  and  my  country  that  it  is  my  entire  belief  that  the  votes 
and  certificates  of  Florida  and  Louisiana  were  bought,  and 
that  the  presidency  was  controlled  by  their  purchase. 
Pelton,  seeing  that  condition  of  things,  committed  a  fault; 
he  committed  an  error ;  he  committed  a  wrong ;  he  adopted 
the  idea  that  it  was  justifiable  to  fight  fire  with  fire ;  he 
adopted  the  idea,  when  he  saw  the  presidency  being  taken 
away  from  the  man  who  had  been  elected  by  the  people  and 
according  to  the  law  and  the  fact,  that  it  was  legitimate  to 
defeat  the  crime  by  the  means  he  took ;  he  was  inexcusable. 

"  I  adopted  an  entirely  different  system  —  an  entirely  dif 
ferent  code  of  ethics.  I  scorned  to  defend  my  righteous 
title  by  such  means  as  were  employed  to  acquire  a  felonious 
possession. 

"  Pelton  did  not  act  rightly.  He  may  be  tried  ;  he  may 
be  condemned ;  public  opinion  may  punish  him.  At  the 
same  time,  even  that  fault  is  to  be  judged  of  according  to 
the  facts,  according  to  the  times,  according  to  what  was 
being  done  and  what  was  done.  His  act  was  an  inchoate 
offence.  On  the  other  side,  the  act  that  was  done  was  a 
completed  and  consummated  offence  ;  it  built  up  a  posses 
sion  of  the  presidency  of  the  United  States  in  the  man  who 
was  not  elected.  And  the  representatives  and  champions 
of  that  condition  of  things  are  the  men  whose  consciences 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  213 

are  troubled  with  the  inchoate  wrong-doing  of  Pelton,  which 
I  stopped  and  crushed  out  in  the  bud  ! 

"  Q.  Now,  Governor,  you  will  state  upon  what  informa 
tion  you  based  that  belief;  and  in  giving  your  information 
you  will  please  give  the  name  of  the  party  communicating 
it  to  you.  A.  I  have  no  private  information  on  the  sub 
ject;  I  believe  it  on  evidence  before  this  committee,  which 
is  accessible  to  the  public. 

"Q.  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  there  is  any  evidence 
before  this  committee  that  either  of  these  returning  boards 

G 

was  bought?     A.    I  think  so. 

*'Q.  Will  you  do  me  the  kindness  to  point  out  the  wit 
nesses  who  testified  to  it,  and  the  evidence  to  that  effect? 
A.  McLin  testified  that  he  held  the  casting  vote  of  the 
State  of  Florida ;  he  testified  that  he  gave  a  false  certificate, 
contrary  to  fact,  and  contrary  to  law.  The  whole  matter  is 
in  a  nutshell  and  easily  discovered. 

"  Q.  You  are  mistaken  ;  McLin  has  sworn  to  nothing  of 
the  kind.  A.  I  think  I  am  not  mistaken.  McLin  said 
further  that  his  mind  was  probably  influenced  by  the 
promise  of  office.  He  was  immediately  afterward  appointed 
to  a  judgeship  in  New  Mexico ;  and  Mr.  Noyes,  who  was 
down  there,  but  did  not  stop  the  transaction,  was  appointed 
minister  to  Paris. 

"§.  Are  you  entirely  clear  that  McLin  swore  that  he  was 
influenced  by  the  hope  of  being  appointed  to  office?  A.  I 
think  he  said  so. 

"  Q.  Do  you  swear  that  he  said  so  ?  A.  I  swear  that  it  is 
my  recollection  that  he  substantially  said  so.  Have  you  the 
record?  —  that  will  show.  [The  committee  refer  to  the 
record.]  Now,  gentlemen,  I  believe  that  I  am  competent 
to  be  the  custodian  of  my  own  honor.  I  do  not  think  that 
my  virtue  is  of  so  delicate  a  texture  that  it  needs  that  I 
should  practise  any  brutality  toward  anybody.  I  may  err 
in  judgment  or  in  conduct ;  but  I  think  that  in  all  my  deal 
ings  with  Mr.  Pelton  I  have  been  able,  and  shall  be  able,  to 
do  about  what  is  right,  —  to  protect  everybody  from  any 
wrong  so  far  as  I  have  any  control ;  and  at  the  same  time  to 
be  just.  You  have  been  pursuing  a  course  of  examination, 
the  object  of  which  was  to  ascribe  to  me  some  failure  of 
duty,  and  you  have  intruded  yourself  into  my  domestic 
and  family  relations. 

"Q.    If  you  had  any  information  at  that  time  that  either 


214  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

the  Returning  Board  of  South  Carolina  or  the  Returning 
Board  of  Florida  was  being  corrupted  by  the  Republicans, 
or  being  influenced  in  their  official  action  by  venal  consider 
ations,  you  will  state  from  whom  you  received  that  infor 
mation.  A.  I  had  no  personal  information. 

"  Q.  You  cannot  give  me  the  name  of  any  man  ?  A.  No  ; 
I  stated  my  belief,  and  I  state  it  on  evidence  ;  that,  in  my 
judgment,  would  convict  anybody  before  a  common  jury. 

"Q.  You  state  it  upon  evidence,  as  I  understand  you, 
that  would  convict  any  one  before  a  common  jury.  Will 
you  give  me  now  again  the  name  of  the  person  who  con 
veyed  that  evidence  to  you?  A.  The  evidence  is  public. 

"§.  Oh,  it  is  public  !  Then  you  mean  to  say  that  you 
have  made  that  serious  charge  against  these  returning 
boards  upon  what  you  saw  in  the  papers  and  upon  public 
rumor?  A.  No,  not  upon  public  rumor. 

"$.  Upon  what  you  saw  in  the  papers?  A.  I  make 
that  charge  upon  the  fact  and  evidence  before  your  com 
mittee  and  other  committees. 

"Q.  Now  I  ask  you  again  to  give  me  any  evidence  which 
you  had  that  those  boards  were  being  corrupted  by  the 
Republicans,  outside  of  rumors  that  you  heard  on  the 
street  or  assertions  which  you  saw  in  the  newspapers?  A. 
Those  two  boards  did  not  act  until  two  weeks  afterward. 

"$.  No,  they  did  not;  but  I  said  about  the  time.  A. 
They  had  not  made  their  decision  or  given  their  cer 
tificate. 

"  Q.  Very  well ;  I  will  accept  that  as  the  fact.  I  will  make 
my  question  more  specific  than  that.  Up  to  the  time  of  the 
final  announcement  of  the  decision  by  those  two  boards  re 
spectively,  please  communicate  to  this  board  any  evidence 
which  you  have  that  they  were  corruptly  influenced  by 
Republicans,  besides  the  rumors  which  you  heard  in  the 
streets  and  the  facts  which  you  saw  alleged  in  the  news- 

«/  O 

papers.     A.   You  will  find  in  the  Field  committee  — 

"Q.  I  am  not  speaking  of  that  time  ;  I  am  not  speaking 
of  so  late  a  period  as  the  Field  committee.  I  am  limiting 
you  to  the  time  of  their  final  action.  A.  That  is,  up  to  the 
6th  of  December? 

"Q.  Yes;  we  are  not  after  any  congressional  investiga 
tion.  That  will  speak  for  itself.  A.  I  have  no  proof  up 
to  that  time. 

"Q.    You  have  no  evidence  up   to   December  6,   1876. 


TILDE NrS    TESTIMONY  215 

Have  you  any  evidence  except  what  you  saw  in  the  news 
papers  ?  Did  you  see  any  evidence  except  what  you  saw 
in  the  newspapers?  A.  I  did  not  personally. 

"  Q.  Do  you  know  of  anybody  who  did  have  at  that  time 
any  evidence  ?  and  if  so,  give  his  name.  A.  The  testi 
mony  before  the  Field  committee  discloses. 

"§.  So  that  all  that  you  know  of  it  you  subsequently 
learned  by  the  investigation  before  the  Field  committee? 
Then,  as  I  understand  it,  at  the  time  when  Colonel  Pclton 
went  to  Baltimore  for  the  purpose  of  hearing  a  proposition 
on  the  part  of  the  Returning  Board  of  South  Carolina  to 
sell  themselves  or  to  give  a  certificate  to  the  Tilden  elec 
tors  of  that  State,  —  up  to  that  time  you  had  no  informa 
tion  except  the  rumors  which  you  saw  in  the  newspapers 
that  they  were  being  venally  influenced  by  Republicans? 
A.  I  had  no  proof. 

"  Q.  You  had  no  evidence  except  what  you  saw  in  the 
newspapers  ?  —  that  is  my  question.  Did  you  have  anything 
except  what  you  saw  in  the  newspapers?  A.  Up  to  the 
6th  of  December? 

"Mr.  HISCOCK. — Yes,  sir.  A.  I  do  not  think  that  I 
had. 

"§.  Then  you  had  nothing  except  newspaper  reports  at 
the  time  when  Mr.  Pelt  on  went  there  for  that  purpose  ? 
Then  in  your  mind  you  must  withdraw,  as  a  justification 
for  Pelton's  conduct  at  that  time,  the  statement  that  he  was 
ransoming  goods  from  thieves,  or  that  he  was  fighting  fire 
with  fire?  A.  I  did  not  say  that  he  was  justified,  but  that 
he  thought  he  was. 

"§.  And  that  was  predicated  upon  rumors  in  the  news 
papers?  A.  He  was  perhaps  acting  upon  a  belief  in  his 
own  mind  which  subsequently  proved  to  be  true.  I  did 
not  say  that  I  defended  his  position. 

"  Q.  I  did  not  understand  you  to  say  that  you  defended 
his  position,  but  I  understood  in  part  your  answer  to  be  an 
apology  for  his  position?  A.  No;  an  alleviation. 

"  Mr.  HISCOCK.  — My  word  was  f  apology.' 

"  Mr.  HUNTOX.  —  The  only  difference  about  that  is  that 
he  is  testifying  and  you  are  not. 

"The  WITNESS  (continuing). — The  danger  of  tolerat 
ing  a  wrong  on  either  side  is  its  tendency  to  grow.  One 
man  does  a  thing  because  another  man  does  it.  By  action 
and  reaction  abuses  and  wrongs  grow  until  they  become  a 


216  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDE  N 

common  practice.  That  was  one  of  the  reasons  that  im 
pelled  me  to  put  my  foot  down  against  every  approach  to 
anything  of  this  kind. 

"Mr.  HISCOCK. — Now  I  desire  to  call  your  attention  to 
one  other  despatch  in  this  case,  which  came  from  Mr. 
Marble.  It  is  on  page  17,  No.  34,  addressed  to  Colonel 
Pelton,  No.  15  Gramercy  park. 

"  Woolley  asks  me  to  say,  Let  forces  be  got  together  immediately,  in 
readiness  for  contingencies  either  here  or  in  Louisiana.  Why  do  you  not 
answer? 

Did  you  ever  see  that  despatch  before  it  was  published  ? 
A.  I  never  did. 

"§.    Of  that  you  are  clear ?     A.    Positive. 

"Q.  If  you  had  seen  it,  the  phrase  f  let  forces  be  got 
together  immediately  for  contingencies  either  here  or  in 
Louisiana '  would  have  attracted  your  attention?  A.  It 
might  have  done  so. 

"§.  Have  you  any  doubt  that  it  would?  A.  I  do  not 
now  understand  what  it  means. 

"$.  I  will  ask  you  this  question  in  that  connection,  — 
If  you  know  or  have  heard  that  about  that  time  any  con 
siderable  sum  of  money  was  raised  by  anybody  connected 
with  the  National  Democratic  Committee?  A.  I  have  not. 

"§.  Have  you  known,  or  have  you  learned  since,  that 
at  any  time  after  the  election  any  considerable  sum  of 
money  was  raised  by  any  Democratic  parties  here  in  the 
city  of  New  York  or  elsewhere  which  might  be  used  in 
those  States  for  political  purposes?  A.  Of  that  I  have  no 
personal  knowledge. 

"§.  Have  you  ever  heard  so?  A.  I  cannot  say  that  I 
have. 

"Q.  Has  any  communication  of  that  kind  been  made  to' 
you  ever,  —  that  any  considerable  sum  of  money  was  raised 
by  Democratic  parties  which  might  be  used  for  political 
purposes  ?  I  am  now  speaking  of  the  time  after  the  election 
was  over. 

"Mr.  SPRINGER. —  Are  you  referring  to  the  despatches 
developed  in  the  f  Tribune  '  ? 

"Mr.  HISCOCK. — I  have  said  distinctly,  after  the  election 
was  over.  A.  I  cannot  undertake  to  say,  because  the  com 
mittee  may  have  been  in  debt. 

"  Q.    I  speak  with  reference  to  money  which  was  raised 


TILDEN'S    TESTIMONY  217 

by  any  one.  A.  I  think  the  committee  was  pretty  largely 
in  debt. 

"  Q.  You  think  it  was  in  debt  ?  Is  that  what  I  under 
stand  you  to  say  ?  A.  Yes  ;  I  think  it  was  more  or  less  in 
debt  for  a  year. 

"Q.  My  question  was,  whether  you  knew  of  any  moneys 
having  been  raised  which  might  have  been  used  in  those 
States"?  A.  I  do  not. 

"§.  Or  of  any  moneys  having  been  raised  during  the 
period  of  time  when  this  correspondence  was  going  on? 
A.  I  cannot  say  whether  that  was  so  or  not;  I  cannot  tell 
you. 

"  Q.  Does  that  mean  to  imply  that  you  have  heard  some 
thing  of  the  kind?  A.  It  means  I  did  not  keep  track  of 
the  committee. 

"Q.  Will  you  be  kind  enough  to  look  on  page  28  of  the 
*  Tribune '  Extra,  No.  44?  The  last  telegram  here  you  will 
see  is  from  f  Denmark '  [Pelton]  to  Smith  Weed  : 

"  Last  telegram  here.  There  is  undoubtedly  good  ground,  upon  which 
favorable  decision  could  be  had;  but  to  be  consistent  and  sustainable,  it 
would  and  should  involve  electing  Hampton,  or  else  it  would  be  involved  in 
inconsistencies  impossible  to  sustain. 

M.    Well? 

"Q.   Did  you  ever  see  that  telegram?     A.    I  never  did. 

"  Q.  That  sentence  that  I  have  read  to  you  is  rather  in 
the  nature  of  a  legal  opinion,  is  it  not  ?  A.  It  appears  to  be. 

nQ.  Did  you  ever  communicate  that  legal  opinion  to 
Colonel  Pelton?  A.  I  don't  think  I  did. 

w  Q.  Do  you  not  think  you  did  ?  Is  that  as  strong  as  you 
want  to  put  it  ?  I  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  you 
simply  say,  '  I  don't  think  I  did.'  A.  I  have  no  recollec 
tion  or  belief  that  I  did. 

"  Q.  Do  you  know  with  whom  Colonel  Pelton  did  advise 
as  to  legal  questions  of  that  sort?  A.  I  do  not. 

w  Q.  Did  he  ever  advise  with  you  as  to  these  legal  ques 
tions?  A.  I  have  no  recollection  of  his  ever  doing  it. 

"Q.  You  knew  all  this  time  that  Colonel  Pelton  was  in 
direct  communication  with  these  gentlemen,  did  you  not? 
A.  What  time?  What  gentlemen ? 

"Q.  At  the  time  with  these  gentlemen  in  Florida  and 
South  Carolina.  A.  I  do  not  think  that  I  knew  he  was  in 
any  special  communication  with  them. 


218  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"Q.  Did  you  not  know  he  was  receiving  numerous  tele 
grams  from  the  visiting  statesmen?  A.  I  did  not. 

"Q.  Not  when  he  was  living  at  your  house,  and  they  are 
directed  to  your  house?  A.  They  were  not  directed  to  my 
house ;  no,  sir. 

"Q.  They  were  directed  to  your  house.  A.  No,  sir; 
only  the  fifteen  Florida  ones. 

"  Q.  Did  you  not  know  that  others  were  sent  there  ?  A. 
Sent  where? 

"§.  Sent  to  your  house  ?  A.  I  do  not  think  they  were 
ever  sent  there. 

"Q.  What  makes  you  think  they  were  not  ?  A.  I  think 
I  should  have  heard  of  it  if  they  had  been.  I  have  already 
told  you  those  telegrams  were  not  delivered  to  my  house, 
according  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge  and  belief. 

nQ.  How  do  you  know?  A.  I  live  there,  and  it  would 
sometimes  happen  that  a  telegram  would  have  come  within 
my  knowledge. 

" Q.  But  none  of  them  ever  did  ?  A.  None  of  them  ever 
did,  so  far  as  I  recollect  or  believe. 

"Q.  Does  it  not  impair  your  certainty  on  that  subject 
that  you  cannot  tell  whether  or  not  certain  telegrams  were 
received  by  your  private  secretary  which  obviously  came 
there  ?  Might  not  you  have  had  a  similar  lapse  of  mem 
ory  as  to  these  as  to  those  directed  to  your  private  secre 
tary?  A.  It  might  have  been  so  as  to  one  telegram;  but 
I  do  not  think  a  large  number  of  telegrams  could  have  come 
there  without  my  knowing  it. 

"Q.  What  were  Colonel  Pelton's  hours?  What  time  did 
he  spend  at  your  house?  A.  He  generally  came  in  after  I 
was  abed  and  asleep,  and  generally  went  out  before  seeing 
me  in  the  morning. 

"Q.    Generally  before ?     A.    Not  always  before. 

"Q.  Late  to  bed,  and  early  to  rise?  A.  Not  always  be 
fore  ;  he  was  hardly  ever  at  breakfast. 

"  Question  by  Mr.  REED.  —  I  will  ask  one  other  question  : 
Did  there  a  great  many  telegrams  come  to  your  house, 
Governor  Tilden?  A.  I  cannot  say. 

"§.  Did  a  great  many  telegrams  come  to  your  house  at 
Gramercy  park  during  these  days?  A.  My  impression 
would  be  there  were  not  a  great  many. 

"§.  Do  not  you  know  there  were  a  great  many  messen 
gers  arriving  constantly  from  the  Western  Union  Company 


TILDEN' S    TESTIMONY  219 

at  your  house?  A.  I  cannot  remember.  My  impression 
is  there  did  not  a  great  many  arrive.  Messages  to  me 
would  generally  come  there ;  messages  to  Pelton  were  not 
delivered  there,  but  went  to  the  national  committee  room. 
Of  course  I  cannot  undertake  to  say  none  came  to  him 
there.  I  should  think  on  election  night  there  came  a  good 
many. 

"  Mr.  HUNTON.  —  I  should  like  to  ask  Governor  Tilden  a 
question.  Telegram  34,  on  page  17,  purports  to  be  from 
Marble  to  Colonel  Pelton.  According  to  the  f Tribune' 
translation  this  telegram  is  : 

lt  Woolley  asks  me  to  say,  Let  forces  be  got  together  immediately  in 
readiness  for  contingencies  either  here  or  Louisiana.  Why  do  you  not 
answer? 

"  MARBLE. 

"  Do  you  know  of  any  forces,  in  the  sense  of  military 
forces  or  otherwise,  that  were  being  used,  or  that  were 
ready  to  be  used,  or  that  there  was  any  intention  at  that 
time  to  use?  A.  No,  sir;  I  do  not. 

"§.  You  knew  nothing  about  forces  in  that  sense?  A. 
No,  sir;  I  thought  it  meant  influence,  friends. 

"  Q.  You  state  your  belief  that  the  returning  boards  in 
one  or  more  States  were  purchased.  You  had  information 
that  led  you  to  believe,  and  if  true  would  convince  you, 
that  at  least  one  of  those  boards  offered  itself  for  sale  to 
the  Democratic  side.  A.  It  was  not  sold  to  the  Demo 
cratic  side  ;  and  is  not  the  conclusion  legitimate  and  proper 
that  if  not  purchased  by  one  side  it  was  by  the  other  ? 

"  Mr.  REED.  —  Oh  !  oh  !  oh  !  Ill  ask  for  the  ruling  of  the 
chairman  on  that  question. 

"Mr.  TILDEN.  — That  is  a  matter  of  logic. 

"  The  CHAIRMAN  (laughingly  to  Mr.  Reed) .  —  Do  you 
expect  the  Chair  to  rule  out  a  question  he  has  himself 
asked  ? 

"Mr.  REED.  — Yes,  sir;  that  one,  with  confidence. 

"  The  CHAIRMAN.  —  Well,  he  said  it  is  a  question  of  logic  ; 
and  as  that  is  not  a  matter  of  investigation,  I  will  rule  out 
both  question  and  answer.  That  is  all,  Governor  Tilden." 

At  the  conclusion  of  Mr.  Tilden's  examination,  the  com 
mittee  went  into  executive  session,  when  they  decided  to 
adjourn  and  return  that  evening  to  Washington. 


220  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

This  proved  to  be  practically  the  end  of  the  cipher  de 
spatch  explosion.  The  men  who  plotted  it  had  succeeded 
in  disturbing  the  peace  and  domestic  relations  of  an  infirm 
old  man  for  several  months ;  they  had  sent  forth  reports 
vitally  compromising  the  private  as  well  as  public  character 
of  the  most  eminent  statesman  of  the  country,  which  reports 
would  leave  their  impression  upon  the  minds  of  millions, 
of  whom  the  evidence  of  his  innocence  would  reach  only 
thousands  and  an  impartial  posterity,  to  whose  judgment, 
however,  they  were  indifferent.  Their  object  was  accom 
plished.  They  had  impaired  Mr.  Tilden's  health ;  they  had 
persuaded  many  that  he  was  as  unscrupulous  in  his  political 
methods  as  Mr.  Hayes  had  been,  and  to  that  extent  fancied 
they  had  rendered  him  less  formidable  as  a  candidate  for 
the  presidency. 

Dante,  who  had  been  one  of  the  priori  or  six  first  men 
of  Florence,  was  summoned  to  answer  a  malicious  charge 
of  peculation ;  he  was  not  allowed  sufficient  time  to  ap 
pear  and  defend  himself;  was  condemned,  as  contumacious, 
to  a  heavy  fine,  and  banished  forever  from  his  native  city 
upon  which  he  had  conferred  its  greatest  glory.  In  such 
company  political  persecution  confers  distinction. 

I  will  venture  to  close  what  it  has  seemed  proper  for  me 
to  say  of  this  barbarous  effort  to  degrade  Mr.  Tilden  in 
the  estimation  of  the  world,  with  an  entry  made  in  my 
diary  on  Thursday  the  13th  of  February,  and  four  days  after 
the  examination  of  the  Fifth-avenue  hotel. 

"  Went  around  yesterday  to  Tilden's  and  found  him  in  a 
state  of  unusual  irritability.  He  had  heard  that  Ellis,  the 
president  of  the  Third  National  Bank,  had  said  that  Tilden 
and  Smith  Weed  passed  an  hour  in  close  conversation  at 
their  bank  between  ten  and  one  o'clock  of  the  day  previous 
to  Weed's  departure  for  the  South.  This,  if  true,  would 
convict  both  Tilden  and  Weed  of  perjury,  for  both  had 
sworn  that  they  did  not  see  each  other  between  the  day  be 
fore  the  election  and  some  time  after  Weed's  return  from 
the  South.  Weed  was  sent  for,  and  this  morning  I  met 


PENALTIES    OF   ANTAGONIZING    RINGS         221 

him  there.  Meantime  the  papers  of  the  day  in  question 
were  looked  over  and  both  the  '  World '  and  '  Herald '  show 
that  Tilden  did  not  go  down  town  that  day,  by  accounting 
for  all  his  time  elsewhere.  Weed  also  has  documents  to 
show  that  it  was  impossible  for  Ellis  to  be  correct.  After 
getting  these  proofs  arranged  and  the  papers  marked, 
Tilden  got  into  his  coupe  and  went  down  to  the  bank.  He 
returned  about  4.30  P.M.  to  get  me  to  go  with  him  to  an 
art  reception  given  by  the  late  William  H.  Vanderbilt,  and 
on  our  way  told  me  that  if  he  had  been  a  half-hour  later 
Ellis  would  have  been  gone  ;  that  when  shown  the  papers, 
Ellis  decided  to  write  Cox  that  he  had  been  mistaken,  and 
that  he  had  since  been  satisfied  that  neither  Mr.  Tilden  nor 
Mr.  Weed  were  in  the  bank  that  day.  Tilden  saw  that 
letter  and  then  came  off. 

"It  is  curious  what  devices  are  resorted  to,  to  destroy 
this  poor  man's  character.  I  was  thinking  this  morning 
that  no  one  but  a  man  of  large  fortune  ought  to  think  of 
running  for  the  presidency  as  an  independent  man.  Had 
Tilden  been  a  man  of  moderate  means  he  would  have 
been  ruined  in  character  long  ago.  But  for  his  having 
files  of  all  the  daily  papers  for  years  back,  and  clerks  to 
assist  in  searching  them,  he  would  not  have  been  able  to 
collect  the  proofs  of  his  whereabouts  on  the  day  in  question 
in  time  to  stop  Ellis  going  on  to  Washington  ;  still  less  the 
wider  range  of  proof  requisite  to  undo  Ellis'  erroneous 
testimony  after  it  had  been  given. 

"The  whole  of  Tilden's  time,  and  the  services  of  several 
eminent  and  costly  lawyers  and  a  number  of  clerks,  have 
been  constantly  required  by  him  since  the  election  to  defend 
him  against  the  prosecutions  and  the  persecutions  of  the 
administration.  There  is  no  prominent  candidate  for  the 
presidency  at  present,  nor  ever  was  there  one,  whose  in 
come  is  or  ever  was  sufficient  to  provide  for  these  expenses 
alone. 

"The  men  who  will  'run  with  the  machine,'  who  will 
form  combinations  with  rings  and  treat  with  the  baser  ele 
ments  of  society,  have  no  such  friction  to  contend  with. 
Those  baser  elements  stand  ready  to  provide  all  the  means 
necessary  for  their  instruments.  But  when  a  man  antago 
nizes  rings,  refuses  to  make  bargains  or  to  give  promises, 
provokes  the  hostility  of  all  the  selfish  interests  which 
thrive  under  a  corrupt  government  only,  he  has  to  contend 


222  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

with  an  amount  of  feebleness  and  acquiescence  on  the  part 
of  the  class  who  profess  to  desire  good  government  and  a 
hostility  from  those  who  prefer  a  bad  one,  which  will  crush 
any  one  who  cannot  at  a  moment's  notice  put  his  hand  upon 
almost  unlimited  resources." 

Early  in  1877  a  report  was  put  into  circulation  in 
Washington  that  Mr.  Tilden  or  his  friends  had  been  ne- 

O 

gotiating  for  the  exemption  of  his  bank  account  from 
inspection  by  the  Investigating  Committee  of  Congress. 
Justly  indignant  at  such  an  imputation,  he  addressed  the 
following  letter  to  Senator  Kernan,  the  last  sentence  of 
which  betrays  the  perfidious  origin  of  the  report : 

GOVERNOR   TILDEN   TO   SENATOR   KERNAN. 

"NEW YORK,  Feb.  21,  1877. 
"THE  HON.  FRANCIS  KERNAN,  Washington,  D.C.: 

"A  telegram  to  the  Associated  Press,  published  this 
morning,  states  that  a  harmonious  agreement  has  been 
brought  about  between  the  Senate  committee,  of  which  you 
are  a  member,  and  a  committee  of  the  House,  by  which  it 
has  been  decided  not  to  go  into  an  examination  of  my  bank 
account  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  accounts  of  the  chairman 
of  the  Republican  National  Committee  on  the  other  hand. 

"  I  repudiate  any  such  agreement,  and  disclaim  any  such 
immunity,  protection,  or  benefit  from  it.  I  reject  the 
utterly  false  imputation  that  my  private  bank  account  con 
tains  anything  whatever  that  needs  to  be  concealed.  Under 
the  pretence  of  looking  for  a  payment  in  December,  the 
demand  was  for  all  payments  after  May  and  all  deposits 
during  nine  months. 

"  The  bank  was  repeatedly  menaced  with  the  removal  of 
its  officers  and  books  to  Washington. 

"A  transcript  of  entries  of  private  business,  trusts,  and 
charities,  containing  everything  but  wThat  the  committee 
was  commissioned  to  investigate,  but  nothing  which  it  was 
commissioned  to  investigate,  because  nothing  of  that  sort 
existed,  has  been  taken,  with  my  knowledge,  to  Washington. 
Of  course  there  is  no  item  in  it  relating  to  anything  in 


TILDEN    TO   KERNAN  223 

Oregon,  for  I  never  made,  authorized,  or  knew  of  any  ex 
penditure  in  relation  to  the  election  in  that  State  or  the 
resulting  controversies,  or  any  promise  or  obligation  on  the 
subject. 

"  Mr.  Ellis,  the  acting  president  of  the  bank,  himself  a 
Republican,  some  time  ago  told  the  chairman  of  the  com 
mittee  and  several  of  its  members,  that  there  is  nothing  in 
the  account  capable  of  furthering  any  just  object  of  the 
investigation.  I  am  also  informed  that  a  resolution  was 
passed  to  summon  me  as  a  witness,  but  have  received  no 
subpoena.  1  had  written  before  this  telegram  appeared,  re 
questing  you  to  say  to  the  committee  that  it  would  be  more 
agreeable  to  me  not  to  visit  Washington  if  the  committee 
would  send  a  sub-committee  or  hold  a  session  here,  but 
that  otherwise  I  should  attend  under  the  subpoena.  As  to 
this  arrangement  now  reported,  I  have  only  to  say  that  I  can 
accept  decorum  and  decency,  but  not  a  fictitious  equivalent 
for  a  mantle  of  secrecy  to  anybody  else. 

"S.  J.  TILDEN." 


CHAPTER  VII 

Income-tax  returns  —  New  persecutions  by  the  administration  —  The  capit 
ulation  of  the  administration  —  The  ignominious  end  of  seven  years' 
persecution  —  Letters  of  Edwards  Pierrepont,  special  counsel  for  the 
government;  S.  L.  Woodford,  United  States  District  Attorney;  Green 
13.  Raum,  United  States  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue;  Charles  J. 
Folger,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury;  and  Benjamin  H.  Brewster,  Attorney- 
General  of  the  United  States. 

THE    INCOME-TAX    SUIT. 

THE  administration  at  Washington,  not  content  with 
violating  the  sanctity  of  private  correspondence  for  material 
with  which  to  discredit  the  candidate  of  the  Democratic 
party,  did  not  scruple  to  avail  itself  of  other  resources 
exclusively  within  its  own  control,  and  with  despotic  reck 
lessness. 

In  the  latter  part  of  August,  1876,  an  article  appeared 
in  the  "New  York  Times,"  the  favorite  New  York  organ  of 
the  administration,  charging  Mr.  Tilden  with  having  sworn 
to  false  returns  of  his  income  ;  and  giving  various  specious 
statements  of  his  sources  of  income  purporting  to  show  a 
substantial  discrepancy  between  its  amount  and  the  amount 
which  Mr.  Tilden  returned.  The  time  selected  for  this 
assault  betrayed  the  unworthy  motives  which  inspired  it. 
It  was  in  the  high  noon  of  the  presidential  canvass,  in 
which,  of  course,  all  of  Mr.  Tilden's  energies  were  enlisted  ; 
his  brother  Moses  was  lying  on  what  in  a  week  or  two 
proved  to  be  his  death-bed ;  Mr.  Tilden  had  not  found  time 
to  complete  his  letter  accepting  the  nomination  of  the  St. 
Louis  convention,  to  which  his  spare  moments,  usually 
taken  from  hours  that  should  have  been  given  to  repose, 
were  devoted.  It  was  under  these  peculiarly  trying  condi- 


THE    INCOME-TAX    PERSECUTION  225 

tions  that  he  was  suddenly  and  altogether  unexpectedly 
called  upon  to  review  the  history  of  transactions  already 
fourteen  years  old,  of  which  he  had  preserved  scarcely  a 
scrap  of  memoranda.  More  than  six  years  had  elapsed 
since  he  had  retired  from  the  active  practice  of  his  pro 
fession,  subsequently  to  which  he  had  rarely  visited  his 
office  even  formatters  of  private  concern.  Add  to  all  these 
embarrassments,  the  ruthless  hand  of  one  of  the  same  cab 
inet  ministers  who  subsequently  engineered  the  electoral 
frauds  in  Florida  and  Louisiana  was  here  visibly  directing 
the  blow  that  was  aimed  at  his  honor  through  the  columns 
of  the  "Times." 

Of  course  such  a  charge  with  what  appeared  to  be  official 
specifications,  including  a  facsimile  of  Mr.  Tilden's  income- 
tax  return,  which  could  only  have  come  from  the  Depart 
ment  of  the  Interior,  of  which  Zachariah  Chandler  was  the 
official  head,  produced  a  profound  sensation  throughout  the 
country.  Mr.  Tilden's  character  was  of  more  importance 
to  him  than  the  presidency,  and  inconvenient  and  laborious 
as  it  was,  he  felt  himself  compelled  to  devote  several  weeks, 
with  the  aid  of  three  or  four  clerks,  to  evoke  from  the 
scattered  records  of  the  past,  evidence  of  the  false  and 
malicious  character  of  these  imputations.  With  the  aid 
of  Judge  Sinnott,  who  had  been  his  confidential  law  clerk 
during  the  period  covered  by  the  "  Times,"  he  prepared  a 
statement  which  was  published  on  the  20th  of  September. 
The  "Nation"  of  the  28th  of  that  month  summoned  up 
the  whole  case,  so  far  as  the  main  charge  of  making  a  false 
return,  perjury,  etc.,  was  concerned,  in  the  following 
table  : 


226 


THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 


"TIMES "CHARGE.         TILDEN'S  ANSWER. 


1.  Fee $5,000 

2.  Fees,  etc 2,000 


3.  Fee 5,000 

4.  Fee 2,500 

5.  Fees 4,500 

6.  Fee 5,000 

7.  Fee 5,000 


8.  Fee.. 

9,  Fee.. 

10.  Fees. 

11.  Fees. 


..10,000 
..10,000 
,  .20,000 
,.15,000 


12.  Share  of  bonds 
for  services  .25,000 


13.  Salary 1,000 


Total.... $108,000 

14.  "Obviously false" 

return  for  1863. 

15.  Omission  to  make 

returns  in  subse 
quent  years. 


1.  No  such  fee  ever  received. 

2.  No  such  charge  ever  made. 

Work  done  by  another 
man. 

( No   such  charge  ever 
3-6.  <     made.  Services  end- 

(     ed  before  186-2. 
7.  No  services  in  1862. 


10.  «•        "  " 

11.  Never  received;  the  com 

pany  not  a  client  of  Mr. 
Tilden's. 

12.  No  bonds  retained  for  ser 

vices  in  1862.  Services 
rendered  included  in  re 
turn. 

13.  Correct  except  as  to  date. 


14.  No  answer. 

15.  Permitted  by  kn 


1-6. 


"TIMES"  REPLY. 

f  No  proof.    Items  declared 
to  have  been  made  up  by 
affixing   to    the    titles  of 
"  certain      instruments  " 
certain  charges  "  believed 
to    have    been    approxi 
mately  correct."     No.  2 
"  withdrawn." 
7.  No"  proof;  defence  irrelevant, 
because    offered    by  a    man 
"  well  disposed  to  take  refuge 
in  a  suggested  falsehood." 
c  Q  ( No     proof;    one   item    of 
°'  J-  I      $10,000  "  withdrawn." 

10.  No  proof. 

11.  No  proof;  answer  admitted  to 

be  conclusive;  charge  "  with 
drawn." 

12.  No  proof.    Charge  "  reiterated 

with  renewed  emphasis." 


13.  No  proof.     Charge  repeated. 

Whole  answer  pronounced 
"  disingenuous  "  and  "  char 
acteristic  of  its  author,"  but 
total  amount  of  "  true  in 
come  "  cut  down  to  $76,000, 
or  $5,882  less  than  the  amount 
originally  said  to  be  "  fraudu 
lently  concealed." 

14.  No  proof. 

15.  No  proof  of  illegality. 


For  the  period  subsequent  to  that  covered  by  this  table 
the  "  Times  "  had  charged  Mr.  Tilden  with  allowing  the  in 
come-tax  assessor  to  assess  his  income  at  less  than  its  value. 
The  absurdity  of  this  charge  leaped  to  the  eyes  of  every 
reader.  In  the  first  place,  not  only  in  New  York,  but  in 
every  State  of  the  Union,  property  is  assessed  for  taxation 
by  an  official  assessor,  and  the  taxpayer  is  never  required 
to  make  a  statement  of  the  amount  or  value  of  his  property 
except  in  pleading  for  a  reduction  of  his  assessment.  In 
the  second  place,  the  income-tax  law  expressly  provided 
that  in  case  the  taxpayer  omitted  to  make  a  return  of  his 
income,  it  should  be  assessed  by  the  assessor.  It  was  so 
assessed  and  paid.  The  terms  of  the  law  had  been  com 
plied  with,  and,  as  Mr.  Tilden  confidently  affirmed,  he  paid 
more  those  years  than  would  have  been  required  had  he 
made  his  own  returns,  which  he  neglected  to  do  only 


THE    INCOME-TAX    PERSECUTION  227 

because  the  difference  was  not  worth  the  time  and  trouble 
it  would  have  cost  him,  to  apportion  to  each  year  the 
precise  amount  saved  during  that  period,  in  litigations 
covering  a  series  of  years. 

Mr.  Tilden's  answer  effectually  disposed,  for  the  time 
being,  of  these  charges,  which  in  the  somewhat  emphatic 
language  of  a  journal  of  the  period  "  can  be  characterized 
in  no  milder  terms  than  a  vicious  lie,  a  base  slander,  and  a 
diabolical  calumny."  The  assault  had  utterly  failed  of  its 
purpose  so  far  as  any  effect  upon  the  election  was  con 
cerned,  upon  which,  if  it  had  any,  it  seems  to  have  been 
a  favorable  one ;  but  the  extra  toil  and  worry  to  which  it 
subjected  Mr.  Tilden  for  several  weeks  during  the  hottest 
season  of  the  year,  told  seriously  upon  his  health  and  no 
doubt  contributed  to  shorten  his  days,  in  that  respect 
serving  the  purpose  of  his  tormentors  by  contributing  to 
disqualify  him  for  the  duties  of  the  chief  magistracy  four 
years  later,  to  which,  had  his  health  permitted,  he  would 
unquestionably  have  been  chosen. 

Unhappily  for  Mr.  Tilden's  peace,  he  was  still  too  for 
midable  apolitical  force  to  be  neglected.  He  was  regarded 
by  his  party,  with  practical  unanimity,  as  its  inevitable 
candidate  for  the  presidency  in  1880.  Though  the  assault 
upon  his  character  had  thus  far  ignominiously  failed,  the 
resources  of  the  administration's  arsenal  of  defamation  had 
not  yet  been  exhausted.  It  had  charged  Mr.  Tilden  with 
making  false  returns  of  his  income.  He  had  denied  it,  and 
the  public  had  accepted  his  denial,  but  the  administration 
had  prosecuting  attorneys  and  a  judiciary  all  of  its  own 
appointment ;  why  not  institute  proceedings  for  the  money 
of  which  it  was  alleged  the  government  had  been  defrauded  ? 
That  course  would  at  least  vindicate  in  a  measure  the  part 
which  the  administration  had  had  in  promulgating  the  orig 
inal  calumnies ;  it  would  keep  the  question  of  Mr.  Tilden's 
innocence  measurably  open  for  partisan  uses ;  it  would 
worry  and  wear  upon  their  victim,  who  had  no  health  to 


228  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

spare  for  litigation ;  it  would  induce  some  who  wished  to 
be  confirmed  in  their  fanatical  hostility  to  the  Democratic 
party,  to  believe  that  where  there  was  so  much  smoke  there 
must  be  some  fire,  and  that  by  wily  procrastination,  of 
which  the  law  officers  of  the  federal  government  have 
almost  unlimited  control,  the  innocence  of  Mr.  Tilden 
could  not  be  established  until  after  the  suspicions  thus 
propagated  of  his  guilt  might  have  accomplished  their  per 
fect  work.  Accordingly  a  suit  was  instituted  at  the  instiga 
tion  of  the  Hayes  government  against  Mr.  Tilden,  shortly 
after  the  election  in  1876,  to  establish  what  subsequently  was 
admitted  to  have  been  a  purely  imaginary  liability  for  un 
paid  income  tax.  The  commencement  of  this  suit  was  duly 
heralded  through  the  press.  Several  months  elapsed  before 
Mr.  Tilden  was  furnished  with  any  statement  of  the  grounds 
of  the  government's  claim.  No  serious  attempt  was  ever 
made  to  bring  the  case  to  a  hearing,  but  it  was  nursed 
along  to  be  used  as  a  convenient  means  of  presenting  Mr. 
Tilden  to  the  country  from  time  to  time  in  the  attitude  of 
a  culprit.  These  knavish  tactics  were  pursued  throughout 
the  term  of  the  Hayes  administration.  When  the  suit  had 
been  pending  for  a  year  or  more  the  government  was 
forced  to  admit  that  it  was  not  in  possession  of  any  evi 
dence  upon  which  to  sustain  its  suit,  and  then  had  the 
effrontery  to  file  a  bill  of  discovery  to  compel  Mr.  Tilden 
himself  to  furnish  evidence  upon  which  their  prosecu 
tion  could  be  sustained.  To  this  Mr.  Tilden  of  course 
demurred,  regarding  it  as  practically  an  admission  that  the 
government  had  no  cause  of  action.  Judge  Blatchford, 
who  was  sometimes  a  judge  and  always  a  politician,  decided 
against  the  demurrer. 

Pending  the  litigation  over  these  proceedings,  President 
Hayes  and  his  associate  beneficiaries  of  the  frauds  by  which 
he  had  been  installed  in  the  presidency  were  dismissed 
from  the  public  service,  and  a  new  government  replaced 
them.  Meantime  Mr.  Tilden's  health  had  been  steadily 


THE    INCOME-TAX    PERSECUTION  229 

declining.  He  had  ceased  to  be  regarded  as  a  candidate 
for  the  presidency,  and  there  was  no  longer,  therefore,  any 
motive,  if  there  had  been  any  disposition  on  the  part  of  the 
new  administration,  to  persecute  or  defame  him.  The  ques 
tion  now  was  how  to  get  rid  of  the  suit  without  compro 
mising  those  who  instituted  it.  That  story  may  be  best 
told  in  the  language  of  the  parties  who  conducted  the 
retreat.  We  will  commence  with  the  following  memoran 
dum  of  facts  prepared  for  the  counsel  by  Mr.  Tilden 
himself : 

TILDEN'S  MEMORANDA  FOR  COUNSEL. 

"  In  compliance  with  your  request  a  memorandum  of 
certain  facts  involved  in  the  income-tax  case,  discussed  in 
our  recent  conversation,  is  furnished. 

"  1.  The  action  against  me  is,  so  far  as  is  known  or  can 
be  ascertained,  the  only  suit  of  this  nature  which  has  been 
instituted  and  prosecuted. 

"  The  suit  against  Mr.  Hazard  was  for  taxes  accruing 
during  a  portion  of  the  period  when  the  income  tax  ex 
isted.  The  amount  claimed  was  over  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  dollars,  and  the  interest  enlarged  the  claim 
to  at  least  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars.  In  the 
settlement,  the  United  States  amended  its  declaration  so  as 
to  embrace  the  whole  ten  years  of  the  income  tax,  and  to 
fix  the  judgment,  including  principal  and  interest,  at  one 
thousand  dollars.  Judgment  was  taken  by  consent,  and 
the  appeal  was  waived.  Mr.  Hazard  told  me  that  he 
settled  it  because  it  was  cheaper  to  pay  such  a  judgment 
than  the  cost  of  counsel  fees. 

"  (See  letter  of  Hon.  Charles  Bradley,  Mr.  Hazard's  coun 
sel,  Points  for  Defendant,  page  21.) 

rr  The  allegation  on  which  the  United  States  rely  in  the 
action  against  me  is  merely  that  the  assessor  did  not  make 
the  assessment  large  enough.  That  naked  proposition  is 
aided  by  no  other  statement  whatsoever. 

'  The  claim  as  stated  in  the  declaration  applies  equally 
in  the  years  in  which  I  made  a  return  and  in  the  years  in 
which  I  omitted  to  make  a  return.  No  distinction  is  inti 
mated  whether  the  taxpayer  makes  a  return  or  leaves  the 
ascertainment  exclusively  to  the  assessor. 


230  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"  The  consequence  is  that  the  pretensions  in  behalf  of  the 
United  States,  to  review  by  a  court  and  jury  the  action  of 
the  assessor,  extends  to  every  case  in  which  an  assessment 
was  made  during  the  whole  ten  years.  Mr.  Harland,  who 
is  familiar  with  such  subjects,  estimates  that  there  were  some 
four  or  five  millions  of  assessments.  In  every  one  of  them, 
on  the  theory  of  this  suit,  an  action  could  be  brought, 
treating  the  assessment  as  a  nullity,  and  making  a  new 
assessment  by  a  court  and  jury. 

"  As  there  is  no  limitation  against  the  United  States  of 
the  time  for  bringing  an  action,  every  citizen  once  liable  to 
the  income  tax  remains  exposed  to  such  an  action  as  long 
as  he  lives,  and  his  property  remains  subject  to  it  as  long 
as  anything  of  his  estate  can  be  traced. 

"  Other  grave  questions  arise.  For  instance,  the  Statute 
of  1864  expressly  declares  that  'the  amount  due  shall  be 
a  lien  in  favor  of  the  United  States  from  the  time  it  was 
due  until  paid,'  and  the  lien  follows  the  property  into  and 
through  the  hands  of  innocent  third  persons. 

"3.  By  section  3214  of  the  United  States  Eevised 
Statutes  such  an  action  could  not  be  '  commenced '  unless 
the  commissioner  of  internal  revenue  authorized  or  sanc 
tioned  the  proceedings. 

"The  letter  of  Commissioner  Eauni,  giving  his  formal 
approval  of  the  action  against  me,  was  dated  Jan.  25,  1877. 
The  capias,  unaccompanied  by  any  declaration,  was  issued 
elan.  22,  1877,  and  served  on  the  27th. 

"  It  is  noteworthy  in  this  connection  that  under  date  of 
Jan.  3,  1877,  Commissioner  Eauni  had  addressed  to  Mark 
Bangs,  United  States  District  Attorney  at  Chicago,  in 
answer  to  a  letter  dated  October  27th  previous,  an  elabo 
rate  opinion  that  the  decision  of  the  assessor,  'when  an 
assessment  is  in  the  scope  of  his  jurisdiction,  cannot  be 
questioned  collaterally.' 

"You  will  find  the  whole  opinion  on  pages  17-22  of 
Defendant's  Points. 

"The  commissioner  thus  appears  as  having  authorized 
this  suit  nineteen  days  after  he  had  given  a  formal  official 
opinion  that  such  a  suit  is  not  maintainable  in  law.  His 
opinion  is  published  in  the  ' Internal  Revenue  Record'  of 
elan.  8,  1877,  and  was  accessible  to  the  district  attorney 
more  than  two  weeks  before  the  suit  was  commenced. 

"  4.   Not  only  did  the  district  attorney  who  brought  the 


THE    INCOME-TAX   PERSECUTION  231 

action,  and  the  commissioner  of  internal  revenue  who  au 
thorized  the  action,  know  at  the  time,  by  such  high  and,  to 
them,  conclusive  authority,  that  there  was  no  basis  in  law 
for  the  action,  but  they  were  equally  destitute  of  any  evi 
dence  in  their  possession  to  constitute  a  basis  of  fact  on 
which  to  justify  the  action  if  it  had  been  maintainable  in 
law.  They  had  nothing  but  newspaper  fabrications,  got  up 
in  August,  September,  and  October,  1876,  during  the  presi 
dential  canvass,  every  item  of  which  on  being  analyzed 
fails  to  be  probable  cause  or  was  disproved  at  the  time. 

"  I  will  not  go  over  these  in  detail.  One  illustration  will 
suffice.  The  main  attack  was  made  on  my  return  for  1862. 
The  only  tangible  fact  alleged  was  that  in  one  case  I  had 
collected  during  that  year  sums  for  compensation  and  dis 
bursements  which  had  accrued  wholly,  or  almost  wholly, 
during  previous  years  beginning  as  far  back  as  1857.  Now, 
I  happen  to  have  in  my  possession  the  identical  copy  of 
BoutwelFs  'Manual,'  used  by  my  managing  clerk  in  making 
out  the  return  for  1862,  and  it  contains  an  express  decision 
of  the  commissioner  of  internal  revenue,  announced  in 
May,  1863,  that  the  earnings  of  a  lawyer  during  the  pre 
vious  years  are  to  be  excluded  from  the  return,  although 
collected  during  the  year  for  which  the  return  was  made. 

"  Mr.  Harland,  at  the  time  he  put  in  a  plea  forming  an 
issue  of  law  in  the  case,  mentioned  to  me  that  Mr.  Sherman 
said  to  him  that  if  he  had  had  the  management  of  the 
defence,  he  should  have  waived  the  issue  of  law  and  gone 
to  trial,  because  the  district  attorney's  office  had  no  evidence 
to  sustain  the  action. 

"  5.  The  capias  was  issued  by  District  Attorney  Bliss 
two  days  before  his  successor,  District  Attorney  Woodford, 
was  sworn  in.  It  was  served  on  the  27th.  It  claimed  the 
round  and  exact  sum  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars  as  taxes  and  penalties ;  it  was  unaccompanied  by 
any  declaration  specifying  details  of  which  the  claim  was 
composed.  The  complaint  was  filed  on  the  14th  of  April, 
or  about  three  months  later.  It  aimed  to  make  up  the 
gross  claim  stated  in  the  capias,  by  alleging  an  income 
sufficient  to  produce  the  tax.  It  alleged  $2,703,600  of  in 
come  over  and  above  all  on  which  taxes  had  been  paid,  and 
over  and  above  all  lawful  deductions.  It  distributed  this 
immense  sum  over  the  ten  years,  except  $100,000,  which  it 
claimed  for  1861  when  there  was  no  tax.  It  made  this 


232  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

distribution  on  conjecture  or  arbitrarily.  To  1865,  which 
was  a  year  of  universal  disaster,  following  the  fall  of  gold 
and  collapse  of  values  resulting  from  the  close  of  the  war, 
and  a  year  in  which  unquestionably  my  income  was  less 
than  the  sum  I  paid  on,  it  absurdly  assigned  $333,000  of 
the  excess  of  income. 

"  This  immense  pretended  excess  of  income  is  a  mere 
myth.  For  1862  and  1863  I  submitted  returns.  They 
were  carefully  made  out  by  my  chief  managing  clerk,  who 
was  a  counsellor-at-law,  and  the  habitual  expert  of  the  office 
on  questions  under  the  revenue  laws.  He  had  access  to 
every  source  and  means  of  information,  and  no  instructions 
except  a  caution  against  assuming  any  doubtful  question  for 
me  to  verify.  He  has  now  no  doubt  that  the  returns  were 
correct,  except  that  they  leaned  towards  the  government. 
Nor  have  I. 

"  In  the  years  when  no  return  was  made,  I  do  not  feel 
responsible  for  the  assessment  of  the  assessor.  It  is  the 
universal  practice  in  the  State  of  New  York  for  State, 
county,  and  city  taxes  to  be  computed  on  assessments  made 
by  the  public  officers  on  their  own  information  and  judg 
ment.  The  citizen  has  a  statutory  privilege  to  interfere  for 
the  purpose  of  obtaining  a  reduction  of  the  assessment ;  but 
never  interferes  for  any  other  purpose.  I  never  heard  it 
suggested,  even  if  the  assessment  were  less  than  the  real 
value  of  the  subject  of  taxation  (such  assessment  being 
made  by  the  assessor  on  his  own  information  and  judgment 
without  interference  by  the  taxpayer),  that  the  taxpayer 
would  be  held  to  be  morally  culpable.  I  never  heard  it 
suggested  that  the  State,  county,  or  city  could  afterwards 
sue  the  taxpayer  for  a  larger  sum  than  that  which  it  had 
so  assessed  and  collected  by  its  own  officers.  The  United 
States  income  law  expressly  provided  the  alternative  for  the 
taxpayer,  if  he  chose  to  leave  the  assessment  to  the  pub 
lic  officers,  and  to  accept  the  enhancement  of  the  assess 
ment  as  a  consequence  of  making  no  return.  It  was  the 
policy  of  the  revenue  laws  to  make  the  discretion  of  the 
assessor  supreme  and  conclusive.  Even  if  returns  were 
made,  the  assessor  had  the  power  to  add  to  return  or  to 
disregard  it,  and  generally  to  make  his  own  assessment  from 
such  information  as  he  might  choose  to  rely  on,  and  to  be 
governed  absolutely  by  his  own  judgment. 

"I  discontinued  making  returns  in  1864  because  of  the 


THE    INCOME-TAX   PERSECUTION  233 

total  impossibility  of  solving  questions  of  law  which  they 
involved,  and  at  a  time  when  I  believed  I  would  pay,  and 
did  pay,  under  the  fiat  of  the  assessor,  a  larger  tax  than  I 
was  properly  liable  to  pay. 

"  In  point  of  fact,  however,  I  generally  paid  a  larger  tax 
than  I  ought,  and  probably  did  so  in  every  year,  unless  that 
result  should  be  changed  by  eccentric  constructions  of  the 
law. 

"  It  is  my  belief  that  during  every  one  of  the  ten  years  I 
was  holding  railroad  bonds  and  stocks  and  other  securi 
ties,  on  which  the  tax  was  deducted  from  the  interest  and 
withheld  before  the  income  reached  me,  to  so  large  an 
amount  that  the  income  thus  taxed  was  a  greater  sum  than 
my  whole  real  income  from  investments. 

"  In  other  words,  the  interest  paid  out  by  me  was  always 
larger  than  the  income  from  that  portion  of  my  investments 
on  which  the  tax  was  not  collected  by  the  government 
through  the  corporation  that  issued  the  securities. 

"During  the  eight  years,  1864  to  1871  inclusive,  the  aver 
age  amount  imposed  by  the  assessor,  including  his  additions 
for  the  omission  to  return,  was  about  $27,000.  I  estimate 
the  aggregate  amount  of  office  expenses  which  come  out  of 
the  gross  receipts  before  the  net  income  is  ascertained,  and 
of  taxes  and  interest  paid  out,  which  are  lawful  deductions 
from  income,  could  not  be  less  than  $30,000  a  year.  I 
estimate  that  the  amount  of  income  on  which  the  tax  was 
collected  through  corporations  issuing  securities  ranged 
between  $20,000  and  $100,000,  and  could  not  be  less  on 
the  average  than  something  between  $40,000  and  $50,000 
a  year.  That  would  make  the  gross  receipts  over  $100,000 
a  year,  and  the  income-paying  tax  between  $70,000  and 
$75,000  a  year. 

"  Growth  of  values  of  property  not  sold,  whether  real  or 
personal,  is  not  income.  Gains  from  real  estate  converted, 
unless  the  real  estate  has  been  purchased  within  two  years, 
were  excluded  by  statutory  definition.  Accretions  from  the 
conversions  of  bonds  and  stocks,  unless  they  were  bought 
within  the  same  year,  were  deemed  not  to  be  taxable  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  in  Gray  v.  Darlington, 
15  Wallace.  Excluding  those  three  classes  alone  (and  there 
are  other  classes  of  exemptions  from  the  tax),  I  believe  the 
growth  of  all  my  property  during  the  eight  years  did  not 
make  good  the  actual  realized  losses  incident  to  the  unsound 


234  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE  N 

finance  of  the  time,  and  furnished  the  amount  on  which  I 
paid  the  income  tax,  less  the  cost  of  living. 

"The  Parthian  arrow  of  the  retiring  district  attorney 
was  aimed  at  his  successor,  and  was  so  understood  by  Mr. 
Woodford.  It  had  the  additional  purpose  of  lending  an 
appearance  of  reality  and  consistency  to  the  electioneering 
devices  used  during  the  canvass  of  1876. 

"  6.  As  early  as  the  last  of  August,  1876,  the  then  dis 
trict  attorney  indulged  in  an  interview  menacing  the  suit, 
and  later  during  the  canvass  he  published  a  report  to  the 
commissioner  of  internal  revenue  on  the  subject.  Those 
officers  freely  used  and  abused  their  official  characters  and 
official  functions  to  give  credit  to  the  electioneering  false 
hoods  of  the  canvass. 

"  7.  After  the  amazing  decision  of  Judge  Blatchford  was 
rendered,  — that  in  every  case  whatsoever  where  there  was 
a  return  and  where  there  was  no  return  the  United  States 
may  at  any  indefinite  time  afterwards  impeach  the  quasi 
judicial  decision  of  its  own  assessor,  set  it  aside  on  the 
naked  allegation  that  the  assessment  was  not  large  enough, 
and  re-try  the  questions  of  the  amount  of  a  man's  income 
by  a  court  and  jury,  involving  countless  issues  of  fact  and 
of  law, — my  counsel  sought  the  speediest  review  of  his 
decision  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  The 
technical  difficulty  was  interposed  that  an  appeal  could  not 
be  had  except  after  a  judgment.  To  obviate  that,  niy 
counsel  offered  the  district  attorney  to  let  judgment  be 
taken  on  the  last  count,  which  was  for  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  of  income  that  never  existed  ;  providing  by  stipula 
tion  that  the  action  might  be  renewed  as  to  the  other  counts, 
and  that  the  United  States  might  take  testimony  de  bene 
esse  at  its  option. 

"  They  were  not  able  to  obtain  this  arrangement  or  any 
arrangement  without  allowing  a  judgment  to  be  taken  on 
an  enormous  amount  of  fictitious  income.  The  government 
and  defendant  are  therefore  brought  to  confront  a  hypothet 
ical  trial  in  a  case  where  it  is  believed  that  there  is  no  legal 
ground  of  action,  even  if  the  government  could  prove  its 
allegations  of  fact.  That  hypothetical  trial  involves  every 
transaction  during  a  period  often  years,  every  item  of  in 
come,  and  every  item  of  deduction  for  expenses,  for  taxes, 
for  interest,  for  losses  by  bad  debts,  by  bad  investments.  It 
is  claimed  that  such  an  impalpable  element  as  the  increased 


THE    INCOME-TAX    PERSECUTION  235 

value  of  the  assets  of  a  company  which  never  made  a 
dividend  during  the  ten  years,  nor  was  ever  able  to  make 
a  dividend  during  that  time,  or  able  to  collect  enough  of  its 
means  to  pay  its  debts  till  the  last  year,  is  to  be  counted  as 
income  of  an  individual  stockholder,  estimating  his  share  in 
the  ratio  of  his  stock.  That  item  alone  would  involve  all 
the  transactions  of  a  mining  company  for  eight  years.  I 
mention  this  as  an  illustration  to  what  interminable  collat 
eral  inquiries  and  controversies  such  a  suit  so  carried  on 
may  lead  if  the  plaintiff  chooses  to  give  it  that  character. 

"8.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  a  case  in  which  every 
reasonable  consideration  is  more  urgent  than  in  the  present, 
in  favor  of  settling  the  questions  of  law  in  advance  of  the 
trial  of  the  questions  of  fact. 

"In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  admitted  that  there  is  an 
extreme  improbability  that  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  would  sustain  the  decision  of  Judge  Blatchford,  and 
overrule  the  immense  series  of  cases  in  the  courts  of  the 
United  States,  of  the  different  States,  and  of  England, 
establishing  the  principle  that  the  quasi  judicial  decision  of 
the  assessors  and  similar  officers  is  conclusive.  I  cannot  sup 
pose  that  the  attorney-general,  still  less  that  such  a  jurist 
as  Mr.  Evarts,  would  have  any  doubt  upon  the  subject. 

"In  the  second  place,  a  rule  which  subjects  every  citizen 
of  the  United  States  liable  to  the  income  tax  in  any  one  of 
the  ten  years  to  have  his  tax  reopened  by  a  suit,  which 
continues  that  exposure  indefinitely,  cannot  but  be  con 
sidered  a  question  of  great  public  importance  to  the  mass 
of  taxpayers  as  well  as  of  great  interest  to  the  government. 
Such  a  question  ought  to  be  settled  at  the  earliest  moment 
by  the  highest  tribunal,  and  put  forever  at  rest.  The 
offer  of  my  counsel  was  immediately  to  carry  a  judgment 
to  that  tribunal,  and  to  unite  with  the  attorney-general  in 
an  application  for  an  immediate  argument,  which  would  no 
doubt  be  granted  on  motion  of  the  attorney-general.  As 
the  United  States  were  not  ready  at  the  December  term, 
and  recently  intimated  in  court  that  they  would  probably 
not  be  ready  for  the  February  term,  no  loss  of  time  would 
result. 

"  In  the  third  place,  there  would  be  a  great  convenience  to 
the  United  States  and  the  court  in  avoiding  a  hypothetical 
trial.  The  case  has  uniformly  been  spoken  of  by  the  dis 
trict  attorney  and  by  Judge  Choate  as  'a  long  case.'  How 


236  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

long  it  will  be  will  depend  on  the  district  attorney.  It  is 
quite  capable  of  being  ramified  to  take  a  whole  term  or 
a  great  many  terms.  The  pretension  was  set  up  by  the 
Marquette  testimony  that  the  defendant's  income  should 
involve,  not  the  dividends  declared,  not  the  profits  ascer 
tained  or  adjudged  by  a  corporate  act,  but  the  unrealized 
constructive  profits  of  a  company  that  had  at  no  time  been 
able  to  pay  dividends.  That  one  item  would  bring  into  the 
case  all  the  corporate  books  for  eight  years,  and  more  is 
sues  of  fact  than  would  be  comprised  in  fifty  ordinary  law 
suits.  On  such  a  system,  a  case  which  includes  all  the 
transactions  of  ten  years  ought  to  take  a  lifetime.  The 
very  existence  of  such  a  case  illustrates  the  utter  absurdity 
of  the  notion  that  assessment  of  income  is  a  thing  fit  to  be 
done  by  a  court  and  jury. 

"In  the  fourth  place,  to  insist  on  a  hypothetical  trial 
because  of  the  technical  difficulty  of  appeal,  or  to  impose 
onerous  or  impracticable  conditions  not  necessary  to  the 
interests  of  the  United  States,  indicates  a  purpose  to  con 
duct  the  suit  merely  in  such  a  manner  as  to  harass,  oppress, 
and  defame  the  defendant.  The  case  has  been  suspended 
over  the  defendant  for  two  years.  It  is  noticed  for  each 
successive  term,  but  the  United  States  is  never  ready.  The 
defendant  returned  from  Europe  in  October,  1877,  influ 
enced  largely  by  necessity  of  attending  to  and  the  expec 
tation  of  disposing  of  this  case.  He  will  some  time  or 
other  Avant  to  be  liberated  from  the  necessity  of  being  in 
attendance  at  each  successive  term.  The  expenses  and 
other  burdens  of  such  a  controversy,  with  roaming  commis 
sions  such  as  those  at  Boston,  Pittsburg,  Chicago,  and 
Marquette,  ought  not  to  be  imposed  upon  a  citizen  unless 
the  action  is  sustainable  in  law. 

"9.  The  attorney-general,  in  section  362,  United  States 
Revised  Statutes,  is  commanded  to  exercise  a  general 
superintendence  and  direction  over  the  district  attorney. 
The  function  of  the  commissioner  of  internal  revenue  is 
limited  to  an  assent  to  the  bringing  of  a  suit.  After  the 
suit  is  brought,  the  power  and  responsibility  belong  to  the 
attorney-general.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  all  ques 
tions  as  to  the  legal  rights  of  the  government  and  its 
public  policy  are  within  the  domain  of  the  attorney-general. 

"  10.  Such  a  case  ought  to  be  acted  on  with  reference  to 
general  considerations  of  public  policy.  If  the  millions  of 


THE    INCOME-TAX   PERSECUTION  237 

cases  in  which  an  income  tax  was  paid  are  all  open  to 
review  as  a  matter  of  law,  and  it  is  wise  and  right  and 
conformable  to  public  policy  to  undertake  a  revision  of 
them,  there  ought  to  be  a  systematic  inquiry  by  a  competent 
machinery  applying  alike  to  all  citizens.  The  whole  action 
of  the  government  ought  not  to  descend  into  a  mere  raid 
on  one  citizen." 

A  few  days  before  the  meeting  of  the  first  Congress  after 
the  accession  of  Garfield  to  the  presidency,  the  following 
letter  was  addressed  by  Vanderpoel,  Green,  and  Cuining, 
of  counsel  for  Mr.  Tilden,  to  the  Hon.  Edwards  Pierrepont, 
special  counsel  of  the  United  States  : 


VANDERPOEL,  GREEN,  AND  CUMING, 
No.  2  WALL  STREET, 


YORK,  Dec.  3,  1881. 
"  HON.  EDWARDS  PIERREPONT,  Special  Counsel: 

"Sm:  In  reference  to  the  case  of  the  United  States 
against  Tilden,  while  believing  that  the  action  must  result 
unfavorably  to  the  United  States,  upon  the  law,  if  ever  the 
case  can  reach  the  Supreme  Court,  and  upon  the  facts, 
whenever  a  trial  shall  be  had,  I  recently  expressed  to  you 
my  conviction  that  the  United  States  ought  now  to  be  will 
ing  to  discontinue  the  action  on  their  own  motion,  but  that 
I  could  yet  understand  that  some  embarrassment  might 
exist  by  reason  of  expenses  for  whic%h  the  United  States 
may  have  become  liable  relating  to  the  future  as  well  as 
past  conduct  of  the  case. 

"  I  have  considered  the  very  great  burden  to  both  parties 
of  a  futile  trial,  in  a  case  which  theoretically  involves  an 
inquiry  into  every  transaction  of  an  active  professional  and 
business  life,  during  the  ten  years,  beginning  twenty  years 
ago,  —  a  futile  trial  which  would  swamp  a  court  and  jury 
for  an  indefinite  period,  unless  the  controversy  should  be 
limited  by  the  inability  of  the  United  States  to  produce 
evidence  except  as  to  a  very  small  fraction  of  the  things 
they  draw  in  question  by  their  claims,  as  asserted  in  their 
complaint. 

"  I  have  considered,  also,  that  next  month  it  will  be  five 
years  since  this  action  was  commenced  ;  that,  as  I  suppose, 


238  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

at  no  time  have  the  United  States  been  really  ready  for 
trial ;  that  when  the  present  district  attorney  inherited 
this  action,  he  found  in  his  office  no  facts  or  evidence  by 
which  to  frame  a  complaint ;  that  two  years  later  the  United 
States,  in  a  bill  of  discovery,  placed  on  the  files  of  the  court 
an  avowal  that  they  then  had  no  evidence  on  which  they 
could  safely  proceed  to  trial ;  that  at  the  present  time,  I 
believe,  the  United  States  have  not  at  all  improved  their 
condition  in  this  respect ;  that,  nevertheless,  the  defendant 
may  be  subjected,  for  years  to  come,  to  the  necessity  of 
preparation  for  each  successive  term,  while  totally  unable  to 
obtain  a  final  termination  of  the  trial ;  and  that  the  defend 
ant  has  been  frequently  compelled,  at  great  expense  and 
inconvenience,  to  send  counsel  five  hundred  or  a  thousand 
or  fifteen  hundred  miles  to  attend  upon  fishing  excursions 
in  the  form  of  commissions  to  take  testimony  de  bene  esse, 
in  which  extended  investigations  have  been  made  into  the 
affairs  of  corporations  and  masses  of  testimony  taken  which 
the  commissioners  could  not  exclude,  but  which  are  not 
admissible  as  evidence  in  the  case. 

"  I  have  also  considered  that,  notwithstanding  the  inex 
pediency  of  subjecting  either  party  or  the  court  to  the 
trouble  or  costs  of  a  hypothetical  trial,  in  a  case  in  which 
there  is  every  probability  the  Supreme  Court  will  hold 
as  matter  of  law  that  there  is  no  cause  of  action,  every 
expedient  for  first  presenting  the  question  of  law  to  that 
tribunal  has  failed ;  that,  notwithstanding  the  concurrence 
of  all  the  leading  cases  in  England,  in  the  several  States 
and  in  the  United  States,  that  the  quasi  judicial  judgment 
of  a  taxing  officer  fixing  the  amount  of  the  tax  is  conclusive 
upon  the  government,  as  well  as  upon  the  citizen,  and  an 
elaborate  opinion  of  the  commissioner  of  internal  revenue, 
dated  Jan.  3,  1877,  to  the  same  effect,  the  interlocutory 
ruling  of  the  district  judge  on  the  demurrer  in  the  case 
debars  an  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court  until  after  final 
judgment  at  the  trial ;  that,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things, 
it  would  probably  take  from  three  to  five  years  to  obtain  a 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  on  the  case,  —  and  that 
could  be  obtained  only  in  the  contingency  that  a  judgment 
should  be  rendered  for  the  United  States. 

"Considering  all  these  matters,  I  repeat  the  suggestion 
made  to  you  that  the  United  States  proceed  to  discontinue 
their  action,  and  that  they  be  relieved,  by  arrangement  with 


THE    INCOME-TAX    PERSECUTION  239 

me,  from  the  expenses,  including  counsel  fees,  which  the 
United  States  have  incurred  or  become  liable  for;  the 
amount  of  such  expenses,  whatever  they  are,  cannot  but 
be  small  compared  with  those  which  each  party  must  here 
after  incur,  if  the  case  goes  on. 

"Very  respectfully  yours,  etc., 
"(Signed)  A.  J.  VANDERFOEL." 

The  successive  stages  of  the  government's  capitulation 
will  be  found  set  forth  with  sufficient  detail  in  the  several 
communications  following : 

Edwards    Pierrepont,    Special    Counsel  for   the     United 
States,  to   the  acting  Attorney- General  of  the  United 

States. 

"To   THE   HON.    SAMUEL  F.  PHILLIPS,   Acting   Attorney- 
General  of  the   United  States: 

"In  the  suit  of  the  United  States  against  Samuel  J. 
Tilden  to  recover  income  tax,  I  have  the  honor  to  report 
that  after  my  retainer,  on  the  8th  of  March,  1880, 1  devoted 
most  of  my  time  for  an  entire  month  to  the  investigation 
of  the  statutes,  the  judicial  decisions,  the  very  long  dep 
ositions,  the  examination  of  witnesses,  the  laws  relating 
to  the  admission  of  evidence  in  the  case,  and  to  very  many 
consultations  with  the  United  States  attorney,  General 
Woodford,  and  his  assistant,  Mr.  Clarke,  aided  by  Mr. 
Arnoux,  who  is  especially  retained,  and  by  Mr.  Webster,  of 
the  internal  revenue  service,  to  whose  intelligent  activity 
and  zeal  is  largely  due  the  discovery  of  the  more  valuable 
evidence  in  the  case. 

"  The  matter  is  complicated,  and  the  difficulties  of  reach 
ing  a  satisfactory  conclusion  are  increased  by  the  great 
lapse  of  time. 

"Mr.  Tilden's  first  return  is  for  the  year  1862. 


"  After  Mr.  Tilden  was  nominated  for  the  presidency  by 
the  Democratic  convention  in  June,  1876,  this  action  was 
commenced.  Up  to  that  time  no  charge  had  been  made  by 
any  officer  of  the  government  that  the  defendant  was  in 
default. 


240  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"  The  summons  was  served  under  the  order  of  the  late 
district  attorney  just  before  he  went  out  of  office,  and  the 
suit  came  by  inheritance  to  General  Woodford,  the  present 
district  attorney,  who  prepared  the  complaint. 

:f  The  complaint  contains  twelve  counts,  and  demands 
judgment  against  the  defendant  for  $128,442,  besides 
interest  for  many  years,  and  costs  of  the  action. 

"Prior  to  my  retainer  in  the  case,  in  March,  1880,  the 
district  attorney,  General  Woodford,  having  collected  and 
examined  all  the  evidence  within  his  reach  to  warrant  him 
in  proceeding  to  trial,  accordingly  filed  a  very  long  bill 
of  discovery  against  the  defendant,  as  the  only  means 
left  by  which  "  sufficient  evidence  could  be  obtained. 
The  bill  specifically  states  that  there  is  not  sufficient  evi 
dence  to  be  had  without  resort  to  a  bill  of  discovery. 
To  this  bill  a  demurrer  was  interposed,  and  the  ques 
tions  raised  by  the  demurrer  are  now  pending  before  the 
Supreme  Court. 

"In  the  bill  filed  for  discovery,  the  plaintiff  avers  that  for 
the  years  1862  and  1863  the  defendant  made  returns  of  his 
income,  but  that  the  same  were  not  true  returns  ;  and  that 
for  the  years  1864,  1865,  1866,  1867,  1868,  1869,  1870, 
and  1871  the  defendant  neglected  to  make  any  returns, 
and  that  in  default  of  such  returns  the  proper  officers 
'  estimated  the  amount  of  the  defendant's  income  for  said 
years,  and  assessed  the  tax  thereon,  together  with  the  addi 
tional  penalties  prescribed  by  law,  ivhich  tax,  additions,  and 
penalties  so  assessed,  the  defendant  paid  to  the  officers 
authorized,  etc.'' 

"The  Act  of  1864,  as  amended  by  the  Act  of  March  3, 
1865  (13  Statutes  at  Large,  480),  provides,  'That  it  shall 
be  the  duty  of  all  persons  of  lawful  age  to  make  and  render 
a  list  or  return  of  the  amount  of  their  income,  gains,  etc. 
.  and  in  case  any  person  shall  neglect  or  refuse  to 
make  and  render  such  list  or  return,  or  shall  render  a  false 
or  fraudulent  list  or  return,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the 
assessor  to  make  such  list,  according  to  the  best  informa 
tion  he  can  obtain,  by  examination  o/  such  person,  and 
his  books  and  accounts,  or  any  other  evidence,  and  to  add 
twenty-five  per  cent,  as  a  penalty  to  the  amount  of  the  duty 
on  such  list,  in  all  cases  of  wilful  neglect,  or  refusal  to  make 
and  render  a  list  or  return ;  and  in  all  cases  of  a  false  or 
fraudulent  return,  to  add  one  hundred  per  cent,  as  a  penalty: 


THE    INCOME-TAX   PERSECUTION  241 

"  The  penalty  for  neglect  to  make  returns  was  increased 
to  fifty  per  cent,  by  the  Act  of  March  2,  1867  (14  U.S. 
Statutes  at  Large,  page  479). 

"  There  is  no  charge  that  the  returns  made  were  false  and 
fraudulent  for  the  years  1862  and  1863,  when  under  oath 
the  returns  were  made,  and  I  find  no  evidence  that  they 
were  not  correct ;  and  if  the  case  rested  on  those  years 
alone,  I  am  clearly  of  opinion  that  the  government  would 
dismiss  the  suit.  I,  therefore,  consider  the  question  only 
which  relate  to  the  years  1864,  1865,  1866,  1867,  1868, 
1869,  1870,  and  1871,  when  the  plaintiff  alleges  that  the 
defendant ' neglected  to  make  returns'  and  f paid  the  tax  and 
penalties  prescribed  by  the  statutes.'' 

"  The  act  above  cited  prescribes  in  definite  terms  f  the 
duty '  of  the  citizen  relating  to  returns  of  income ;  and  in 
case  of  neglect  imposes  a  penalty,  and  specifically  directs 
how  the  assessor  shall  make  a  list  for  return  and  imposition 
of  the  penalties. 

"  The  defendant  denies  all  the  material  allegations  con 
tained  in  the  various  counts  of  the  complaint,  and  (as  a 
specimen)  adds :  '  And  for  a  further  and  separate  defence 
to  the  seventh,  eighth,  tenth,  eleventh,  and  twelfth  causes 
of  action  contained  in  the  complaint,  the  defendant  alleges 
that  he  neglected  to  make  a  list  or  return,  and  that  after 
said  neglect  for  each  of  said  years  the  assessor  made  a  list 
of  defendant's  annual  income,  and  did  assess  the  duty 
thereon,  and  did  add  fifty  per  cent,  as  a  penalty,  all  of 
which  tax  and  penalties  the  defendant  paid  to  the  col 
lector.' 

"To  these  pleas  the  plaintiff  demurred,  and  Judge 
Blatchford,  in  a  very  elaborate  opinion,  sustained  the 
demurrer,  thus  holding  that  the  payment  of  the  tax  as 
sessed,  and  the  penalties  imposed,  did  not  discharge 
the  defendant  from  further  liabilities,  notwithstanding 
the  lapse  of  time  and  the  absence  of  any  charge  that  the 
assessor  had  been  deceived  or  misled  by  any  concealment 
or  other  act  on  the  part  of  the  defendant. 

"  I  am  not  aware  that  this  direct  question  has  ever  been 
decided  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  and 
until  it  is  thus  passed  upon,  there  is  likely  to  be  much 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  law  of  this  case. 

"  The  question  will  of  course  arise  on  the  trial,  and  its 
discussion  in  presence  of  the  jury  will  (however  irregular 

VOL.  II.  - 16 


242  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

it  may  be)  tend  to  bias  their  minds  in  favor  of  the  defend 
ant,  on  the  ground  that  when  the  citizen  had  paid  all  the 
tax  that  the  law  seemed  to  require,  with  heavy  penalties 
for  his  neglect,  added  exactly  as  the  statute  directed,  and 
no  charge  of  fraud,  deception,  or  concealment  is  made,  and 
the  money  is  received  and  the  receipt  given,  and  years  had 
been  allowed  to  pass  without  any  suggestion  of  the  assess 
ment  or  penalty  being  too  low,  it  would  not  be  equitable 
or  just,  so  long  after  the  repeal  of  the  law,  to  impose  a  new 
burden.  Of  course,  as  this  is  a  pure  question  of  law,  the 
jury  would  have  no  right  to  consider  it,  except  as  directed 
by  the  court ;  but  I  have  had  too  much  experience  with 
juries  not  to  be  aware  that  they  will  consider  it,  and  that 
it  may  be  an  excuse  in  some  of  their  minds  for  refusing  to 
find  facts  necessary  to  a  recovery  by  the  plaintiff. 

"  If  it  be  decided  that  the  payment  of  the  tax  and  penalty 
is  no  bar  to  the  action,  then  a  legal  question  will  arise  as 
to  the  burden  of  the  proof. 

"As  a  sample  of  the  counts  take  the  sixth.  The  com 
plaint  avers  that  the  defendant  in  the  year  1865  had  gains, 
profits,  and  income  from  various  sources,  '  amounting  to 
three  hundred  and  thirty-two  thousand  dollars,  in  excess 
of  the  sum  of  six  hundred  dollars,  and  in  excess  of  the 
sum  which  was  subject  by  law  to  a  duty  at  a  lower  rate 
than  ten  per  centum,  and  also  in  excess  of  the  sums  wrhich 
he  was  entitled  by  law  to  deduct  from  his  said  gains, 
profits,  and  income  in  estimating  the  amount  thereof  upon 
which  he  was  required  by  law  to  pay  a  duty,  and  also  in 
excess  of  the  amount  of  gains,  profits,  and  income  upon 
which  said  defendant  paid  a  duty  for  said  year,  and  also 
over  and  above  the  sum  paid  within  said  year,  by  said 
defendant,  for  national,  State,  county,  and  municipal  taxes 
upon  his  property  or  other  sources  of  income,  and  also  above 
the  sum  paid  by  said  defendant  for  the  rent  of  the  home 
stead  used  or  occupied  by  himself  or  his  family,  and  above 
losses  sustained  by  the  defendant  upon  sales  of  real  estate 
purchased  by  him  within  said  "  year."  ' 

"The  defendant  takes  issue.  If  the  plaintiff  must  prove 
the  charge  as  laid  before  we  can  get  judgment,  then  the 
chance  of  success  is  not  encouraging.  If  we  prove  that  the 
income  of  the  defendant  for  a  given  year  was  fifty  thousand 
dollars,  and  there  rest,  and  the  defendant  says  nothing,  for 
what  sum  can  we  demand  judgment?  We  sue  for  a  sum 


THE   INCOME-TAX   PERSECUTION  243 

over  and  above  the  statutory  deductions,  which  is  all  that 
the  law  allows.  We  should  be  in  difficulty  unless  the  court 
held  that  the  burden  of  proving  deductions  was  thrown 
upon  the  defendant.  Would  the  court  so  hold  after  the 
taxes  and  penalties  imposed  by  the  proper  officers  had  all 
been  paid? 

"After  this  great  lapse  of  time  there  is  much  difficulty  in 
getting  at  such  evidence  as  the  court  will  receive.  Every 
witness  who  knows  anything  of  value  is  unwilling ;  some 
fear  exposure  of  their  own  delinquencies,  others  profess 
forgetfulness,  and  the  difficulty  in  reaching  legal  and  relia 
ble  testimony  is  nearly  insuperable,  and  it  is  quite  certain 
that  the  tendency  of  the  jury  will  be  against  overhauling 
stale  claims  for  taxes  when  the  defendant  has  paid  all  that 
assessors  impose,  with  heavy  penalties  added,  and  especially 
as  no  charge  is  made  of  deceptive  concealment ;  and  since 
the  suit  was  not  commenced,  and  no  fault  found  until  so 
many  years  after,  when  Mr.  Tilden  was  nominated  for 
President,  political  considerations  will  be  likely  to  enter 
into  the  trial  of  the  cause  and  may  influence  the  verdict. 

"  The  report  of  Mr.  Webster,  an  officer  of  the  internal 
revenue  service,  upon  whom  we  rely  to  furnish  the  only 
valuable  evidence,  was  strongly  against  risking  a  trial  in 
April,  1880,  as  his  report  on  file  shows ;  and  after  a  very 
careful  examination  of  all  the  evidence  which  wre  can  now 
produce,  our  case  is  in  no  respect  stronger,  but  rather 
weaker  than  in  1880. 

"  The  district  attorney,  General  Woodford,  in  a  late 
communication  to  the  President,  is  of  opinion,  in  which  I 
concur,  that  the  action  ought  to  be  dismissed ;  which  com 
munication  of  the  district  attorney  to  the  President,  and 
which  is  referred  to  the  attorney-general,  I  ask  leave  to 
make  a  part  of  this  report. 

"  We  had  hoped  to  elicit  very  valuable,  though  most  un 
willing,  testimony  from  Mr.  Lanier,  a  banker  of  New  York, 
and  on  account  of  his  infirm  health  we  tried  repeatedly  to 
take  his  testimony  conditionally,  but  we  failed  by  reason 
of  his  feeble  condition  of  health.  Last  July  we  obtained 
an  order  for  his  examination,  but  he  was  still  too  ill  to  be 
examined,  and  soon  after  he  died.  We  had  expected  to 
obtain  valuable  evidence  from  a  cross-examination  of  the 
defendant,  but  his  physical  condition  makes  success  in  that 
way  quite  improbable. 


244  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDE 'N 

"  If  the  action  is  to  be  tried,  a  laborious  preparation  is 
essential  and  should  begin  forthwith.  The  trial  will  take 
from  six  weeks  to  two  months  and  will  be  attended  with 
very  large  expenses  to  the  government.  If  the  case  is  to 
be  dismissed,  the  terms  of  dismissal  will  require  your  con 
sideration. 

"  The  defendant  offers  to  reimburse  the  government  its 
expenses.  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  government 
should  dismiss  the  action  without  costs.  I  should  be  of 
that  mind  if  convinced  that  there  was  no  reasonable  ground 
for  commencing  it ;  but  I  do  not  entertain  that  view. 

"  I  regard  this  as  a  case  where  for  various  causes  we  fail 
to  obtain  the  legal  evidence  to  maintain  the  action,  and  I 
think  it  would  be  just  for  the  government  to  exact  as  a  con 
dition  the  payment  of  expenses  incurred. 

"  In  the  suit  against  Hazzard,  in  Rhode  Island,  the  govern 
ment  claimed  over  $150,000,  which  with  interest  amounted 
to  some  $250,000.  It  was  settled  for  just  $1,000. 

"  So  far  as  I  can  learn,  this  suit  is  the  only  one  in  the 
entire  United  States  which  has  been  prosecuted,  except  the 
Hazzard  suit  above  mentioned. 

"  My  opinion  is  that  the  suit  ought  to  be  dismissed  on 
the  terms  proposed. 

"I  have  the  honor  to  remain,  etc., 
"  (Signed)  EDWARDS  PIERREPONT, 

"  Special  Counsel  for  the  United  States. 

"  NOTE  :  There  seems  to  be  evidence  that  for  the  year 
1868  Mr.  Tilden  made  returns,  but  neither  the  complaint, 
answer,  or  the  bill  of  discovery  so  treat  it." 

United  States  District  Attorney   to   the  Commissioner   of 
Internal  Revenue. 

"OFFICE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  ATTORNEY 

FOR  THE  SOUTHERN  DISTRICT  OF  NEW  YORK. 

"NEW  YORK,  Dec.  10,  1881. 
"TiiE   HON.  GREEN  B.  RAUM,   Commissioner  of  Internal 

Revenue  : 

"  GENERAL  :  Enclosed  please  find  (1)  original  proposition 
by  Mr.  Vanderpoel,  of  counsel  for  Mr.  Tilden,  for  settle 
ment  of  the  income-tax  suit  against  the  latter  on  payment 
of  the  expenses  which  the  United  States  have  incurred  or 


THE    INCOME-TAX   PERSECUTION  245 

become  liable  for  in  bringing  and  preparing  this  case,  and 
(2)  copy  of  letter  from  Mr.  Pierrepont  enclosing  such 
proposition  to  me  for  transmittal  to  you.1 

"In  Mr.  Pierrepont's  report  to  the  acting  attorney-gen 
eral,  dated  November  27  ultimo,  and  referred  to  in  the 
enclosed  letter  from  him  to  me,  Mr.  Pierrepont  advises 
that  this  action  be  dismissed  on  condition  of  payment  of 
expenses  incurred.  I  suppose  that  a  copy  of  that  report  has 
been  or  will  be  sent  to  you  from  the  attorney-general's 
office,  with  copy  of  my  letter  to  the  President,  of  Novem 
ber  19  ultimo,  in  which  I  agreed  with  Mr.  Pierrepont  in 
advising  discontinuance  of  this  suit. 

"I  advise  the  acceptance  of  this  proposition  of  settle 
ment,  and  beg  to  accompany  this  recommendation  with  the 
following  statement : 

"On  Jan.  24,  1877,  I  entered  on  the  duties  of  this  office. 
On  Jan.  22,  1877,  two  days  before  that  date,  the  capias 
was  issued  by  my  predecessor,  and  this  suit  was  then 
formally  commenced.  The  complaint  was  subsequently 
drawn.  Then  the  defendant  answered,  both  denying  any 
indebtedness  and  setting  up  as  an  affirmative  defence  that 
as  to  all  the  years  during  which  income  taxes  were  due, 
except  1862  and  1863,  he  had  made  no  returns,  but  had 
been  assessed  and  had  paid  the  taxes  so  found  due  by  the 
United  States  assessors,  with  added  penalties,  and  claiming 
that  such  assessment  and  payment  satisfied  the  claim  of  the 
government.  To  that  defence  I  demurred.  That  demurrer 
was  argued  and  sustained.  This  left  the  cause  at  issue  on 
the  allegations  of  the  complaint  and  the  denials  of  the 
answer.  Subsequently,  after  full  examination  of  what 
details  of  evidence  were  then  within  my  reach,  and  after 
full  consultation  with  the  then  attorney-general,  I  filed  a 
bill  of  discovery  in  May,  1879.  To  that  Mr.  Tilden  de 
murred.  He  was  again  unsuccessful  and  appealed  to  the 
Supreme  Court.  That  appeal  is  now  pending  unheard. 

"Meanwhile   the    spring   of    1880   had   come.     Special 

1 1  was  assured  by  Mr.  Tilden  that  the  letter  containing  what  is  here 
designated  as  a  proposition  originating  with  Mr.  Vanderpoel,  of  counsel  for 
Mr.  Tilden,  for  settling  the  income-tax  suit,  by  his  paying  the  expenses 
incurred  in  prosecuting  the  suit  to  date,  so  far  from  originating  with  him, 
was  actually  propounded  to  Mr.  Vanderpoel  by  the  government's  counsel. 
When  the  proposition  was  submitted  to  Mr.  Tilden  he  said,  u  I  can  afford 
to  settle  this  suit  upon  these  terms,  but  Mr.  Folger  [the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury]  cannot.  He  cannot  afford  to  make  me  pay  the  expense  of  insti 
tuting  the  suit  for  which  he  admits  that  he  had  no  cause  of  action."  —  J.  J3. 


246  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

Agent  E.  D.  Webster  had,  about  Aug.  1,  1879,  been 
assigned  by  you  to  ascertain  as  far  as  possible  the  real  facts 
in  the  case  and  to  assist  in  preparing  for  trial.  Although 
sufficient  evidence  was  not  in  our  possession  when  we  filed 
the  bill  of  discovery  in  May,  1879, 1  thought  in  the  spring 
of  1880,  with  the  additional  help  of  being  then  able  to  put 
Mr.  Tilden  on  the  stand  and  examine  him  in  person,  wTe 
could  try  the  case  as  well  as  w^e  ever  could.  Mr.  Webster, 
who  had  worked  with  great  energy  and  skill,  and  to  whom 
I  owed  most  that  I  really  knew  about  the  probable  facts, 
did  not  think  the  government  ready  for  trial  on  the  facts, 
and  strongly  advised  against  trial  at  that  time.  On  my 
application  for  special  counsel  to  assist  in  preparing  the 
case  and  in  the  trial,  Mr.  Pierrepont  and  Mr.  Arnoux  were 
retained  for  the  government. 

"  There  seemed  to  me  then  an  additional  reason  for  the 
trial  of  the  case  then.  Mr.  Tilden  had  been  candidate  of 
one  of  the  great  political  parties  of  the  country  for  the 
presidency  in  1876.  During  that  canvass  the  allegations 
were  made,  out  of  which  this  suit  grew.  In  January,  1877, 
after  that  election  had  occurred,  the  suit  was  commenced. 

"  In  the  spring  of  1880  his  name  was  again  frequently 
mentioned  in  connection  with  a  presidential  nomination  in 
the  following  summer.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the  case 
should  then  be  tried  and  Mr.  Tilden  relieved  from  its  im 
putations,  or  the  claim  of  the  government  established  in 
court.  Mr.  Tilden,  however,  himself  applied  for  post 
ponement  until  the  autumn. 

"  That  postponement  was  granted  by  direction  of  the  gov 
ernment,  communicated  to  me  through  Mr.  Pierrepont  on  the 
29th  day  of  March,  1880,  on  which  day  I  accordingly  con 
sented  to  the  adjournment  for  which  Mr.  Tilden  had  applied. 

"  Since  then  there  has  been  no  term  of  the  court  at 
which  this  case  could  be  tried  consistently  with  the  engage 
ments  of  our  judges  and  the  condition  of  our  calendars. 

"  It  can  now  be  put  on  the  calendar  for  the  next  February 
term  of  the  District  Court,  and  possibly  can  then  be  tried. 

"  Its  trial  will  occupy  from  four  to  eight  weeks. 

"  Mr.  Lanier,  who  was  living  in  spring  of  1880,  and 
whom  we  thought  a  valuable  witness  for  the  government, 
is  dead.  Others,  and  important  witnesses,  whom  I  then 
thought  willing  and  available,  now  remember  nothing  and 
are  not  available. 


THE    INCOME-TAX   PERSECUTION  247 

"  The  appeal  at  Washington  on  the  bill  of  discovery  is 
still  pending  unheard.  Whether  Mr.  Tilden's  health  is 
such  as  to  enable  him  now  to  be  examined  for  continuous 
days,  and  in  matters  going  into  minute  details  running 
over  many  years  long  past,  I  do  not  know.  I  am  told  he 
is  not.  At  all  events,  I  doubt  our  practical  ability  to 
secure  or  compel  his  attendance  for  such  examination ;  I 
seriously  doubt  our  ability  to  succeed. 

"As  to  all  the  years  except  1862,  1863,  and  1868,  we 
must  confront  the  fact  that  our  assessors  fixed  what  tax 
Mr.  Tilden  should  pay,  and  he  paid  it.  As  to  1862  and 
1863  and  1868,  he  made  returns.  As  to  1862  and  1863 
we  have  no  proof.  As  to  1868,  we  can  perhaps  show  that 
his  taxable  income  exceeded  what  he  stated  it  to  be  in  his 
return,  by  $48,405.59.  Tax  on  this  is  $2,420.26. 

"  If  Mr.  Tilden  is  right  in  his  view  of  the  law,  shared 
by  many,  and  even  accepted,  I  think,  by  your  bureau  in 
1877,  as  to  the  years  when  he  made  no  returns,  but  al 
lowed  the  assessors  to  fix  his  income  and  then  paid  his  tax 
as  fixed  by  them,  then  the  year  1868  is  the  only  one  on 
which  we  can  recover.  If  the  view  as  argued  by  me  and 
sustained  by  the  opinion  of  Judge  Blatchford  is  the  correct 
one,  then  we  are  left  to  prove  his  income  for  the  years 
1864,  1865,  1866,  1867, 1869,  1870,  and  1871.  Of  course, 
on  the  trial  in  the  District  Court  here,  Judge  Blatchford's 
decision  will  control,  but  I  fully  agree  with  Judge  Pierre- 
pont  in  thinking  that  arguments  and  references  in  the 
presence  of  the  jury  to  the  assessments  by  government 
officers,  and  payments  thereon  by  the  defendant,  will  affect 
the  opinion  and  the  verdict  of  the  jury. 

rt  Our  case  is  not  as  strong  as  it  was  in  the  spring  of 
1880.  The  passage  of  time  steadily  weakens  it.  It  should 
be  dismissed  or  tried. 

"  I  believe  that  the  pecuniary  interests  of  the  government 
will  be  best  served  by  accepting  the  offer  of  Mr.  Tilden's 
counsel  to  have  the  case  dismissed,  on  repayment  to  the 
government  of  all  expenses  incurred,  or  for  which  the 
government  is  liable  in  bringing  and  preparing  the  case 
for  trial. 

"Very  respectfully,  etc., 
"  (Signed)  S.  L.  WOODFOED, 

"  United  States  Attorney. 

"  (Two  enclosures.)" 


248  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

Green  13.  Raum,  United  Slates  Commissioner  of  Internal 
Revenue,  to  Stewart  L.  Wbodford,  United  States 
District  Attorney. 

"TREASURY  DEPARTMENT, 
"  OFFICE  OF  INTERNAL  REVENUE, 

"WASHINGTON,  Dec.  23,  1881, 

"  HON.  STEWART  L.  WOODFORD,    United  States  Attorney, 
JVeiv  York  : 

"  SIR  :  I  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  letter  of  the 
10th  instant,  enclosing  copy  of  letter  of  Hon.  Edwards 
Pierrepont,  of  December  6th,  and  the  letter  of  A.  J.  Van-' 
derpoel,  Esq.,  of  December  3d,  in  regard  to  the  case  of 
the  United  States  against  Samuel  J.  Tilden. 

"  The  suit  against  Mr.  Tilden  was  instituted  because  of  a 
belief  founded  upon  the  recognized  fact  of  his  great  wealth, 
much  of  which  was  understood  to  have  been  accumulated 
during  the  tax  period ;  that  he  was  largely  indebted  to  the 
United  States  for  taxes  upon  income.1  This  suit  was  not 
instituted  until  after  one  of  the  justices  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  had  held  in  a  similar  case  that 
the  United  States  had  a  right  to  sue  for  the  recovery  of 
unpaid  income  tax. 

"If  an  investigation  into  this  case  has  developed  the  fact 
to  the  attorneys  of  the  government  that  there  is  no  cause 
of  action  against  Mr.  Tilden,  then  the  suit  should  be 
dismissed  at  the  cost  of  the  United  States.  If  the  at 
torneys  for  the  United  States  are  satisfied  that  a  good 
cause  of  action  exists,  but  in  consequence  of  the  death 
of  some  of  the  witnesses  and  the  difficulty  of  establish 
ing  the  facts  in  the  case,  are  of  opinion  that  the  govern 
ment  cannot  recover,  then  a  compromise  for  costs  and 

1  Here  we  have  an  official  admission  that  the  most  prominent  individual 
in  the  nation  had  been  summoned  by  its  government  to  answer  to  charges 
of  perjury  and  fraudulent  accounting,  not  upon  any  evidence  in  its  posses 
sion  of  any  such  specific  crime  having  been  committed,  but  solely  "upon 
the  recognized  fact  of  his  great  wealth,  much  of  which  was  understood  to 
have  been  accumulated  during  the  tax  period." 

By  whom  was  the  fact  of  his  great  wealth  recognized  in  1867?  By 
whom  was  much  of  it  understood  to  have  been  accumulated  during  the  tax 
period?  And  how  much?  On  these  crucial  matters  not  a  ray  of  light  for 
court  or  country. 

It  is  shocking  to  think  that  the  vast  inquisitorial  powers  of  the  judiciary 
of  such  a  nation  as  ours  should  by  any  possibility  ever  lapse  into  the  hands 
of  men  who  ought  to  be  cutting  stone  or  picking  oakum  with  felons. 


THE    INCOME-TAX   PERSECUTION  249 

expenses  would  seem  admissible.  If,  upon  the  other  hand, 
the  district  attorney  and  his  associates  are  satisfied  that 
Mr.  Tilden  is  indebted  to  the  United  States,  and  if  put 
upon  the  witness  stand  by  the  government  that  he  would 
disclose  such  facts  as  would  secure  to  the  government  a 
verdict,  then,  in  my  opinion,  if  a  compromise  is  effected, 
it  should  be  upon  the  basis  of  the  payment  of  a  considera 
ble  sum  of  money  in  satisfaction  of  the  claim  for  taxes. 

"  If  the  case  could  be  brought  to  trial,  it  seems  to  me 
that  Mr.  Tilden  should  be  made  the  first  witness,  and  if 
his  testimony  failed  to  make  out  a  case  for  the  govern 
ment  I  would  dismiss  the  suit.  I  respectfully  submit 
whether  this  would  not  be  the  best  plan  to  pursue.  It 
certainly  would  be  no  hardship  to  Mr.  Tilden  to  have  him 
spend  two  or  three  hours  in  the  witness  box  to  testify,  in 
regard  to  his  income  for  which  the  government  claims. 
He  could  be  given  ample  notice  of  your  intention  to  call 
him  as  a  witness,  so  that  he  could  prepare  the  necessary 
memoranda  in  advance.  My  impression  is  that  should  you 
pursue  this  course  you  could  get  through  with  Mr.  Tilden 
as  a  witness  in  thirty  minutes,  and  test  before  the  court 
and  the  country  the  question  as  to  his  liability  for  taxes. 

"  Very  respectfully, 
"  (Signed)  GREEN  B.  RAUM, 

"  Commissioner." 

Edwards  Pierrepont,  Special  Counsel  of  the  United  States, 
to  the  District  Attorney  of  the  United  States. 

"156  BROADWAY, 
"NEW  YORK,  Jan.  28,   1882. 

"GEN.  STEWART  L.  WOODFORD,    United  States  Attorney, 
etc.  : 

"  SIR  :  I  returned  from  Washington  a  week  ago  this 
day,  having  seen  General  Raum  the  day  before  I  left.  I 
promptly  saw  Mr.  Yanderpoel,  Mr.  Tilden's  counsel,  and 
he  assured  me  that  Mr.  Tilden  is  in  a  very  feeble  condition 
of  health ;  but  at  Mr.  Tilden's  house  Mr.  Yanderpoel  has 

discussed  the   matter  thoroughly,  as  he  last  night  at  my 

&    j  >  &  j 

house  assured  me. 

"Mr.  Tilden  asserts,  and  will  swear,  if  he  is  ever  able 
to  take  the  stand,  that  it  is  utterly  impossible  for  him,  or 


250  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

for  any  one  else,  to  find  out  whether  or  not  he  paid  all 
the  tax  which  the  law  might  have  exacted;  that  he  had 
no  partners,  and  was  not  obliged  to,  and  did  not,  keep 
regular  books ;  that  when  he  was  regularly  assessed,  and 
paid,  with  full  penalty,  all  that  the  officers  of  the  govern 
ment  demanded,  for  which  they  gave  receipts,  he  supposed 
that  he  had  paid  all  that  any  law  could  require,  and  gave 
himself  no  further  trouble  about  it;  that  his  first  return 
was  twenty  years  ago,  and  that  lapse  of  time,  if  nothing 
else,  would  make  it  impossible,  without  books,  for  any 
human  ingenuity  to  discover  what  gains,  profits,  and  in 
come  he  had,  in  the  three  years  mentioned  in  the  com 
plaint,  r  in  excess  of  the  sum  of  six  hundred  dollars,  and  in 
excess  of  the  sum  which  was  subject  by  law  to  a  duty  at  a 
lower  rate  than  ten  per  cent.,  and  also  in  excess  of  the  sum 
which  he  was  entitled  by  law  to  deduct  from  his  gains, 
profits,  and  income  in  estimating  the  amount  thereof,  upon 
which  he  was  required  by  law  to  pay  a  duty ;  and  also  in 
excess  of  the  amount  of  gain,  profits,  and  income  upon  which 
he  paid  a  duty  for  those  years,  and  also  over  and  above  the 
sum  paid  within  said  year,  by  said  defendant,  for  national, 
State,  county,  and  municipal  taxes  upon  his  property  or 
other  sources  of  income,  and  also  above  the  sum  paid 
by  said  defendant  for  the  rent  of  the  homestead  used  or 
occupied  by  himself  or  his  family,  and  above  losses  sus 
tained  by  the  defendant  upon  sales  of  real  estate  purchased 
by  him  within  said  years.' 

"  He  further  states  '  that  he  did  not  make  returns,  because 
it  was  impossible  from  the  nature  of  his  transactions  to 
make  such  returns  as  he  could  swear  to,  and  because  (like 
many  others)  he  was  not  willing  to  disclose  his  affairs  to 
all  persons,  some  of  whom  would  be  likely  to  make  un 
reasonable  claims  upon  his  bounty ;  that  he  cannot  tell 
whether,  even  under  the  decision  of  Judge  Blatchford,  he 
would  be  liable  for  anything  or  not,  if  all  the  facts  could  be 
ascertained ;  but  that  he  is  willing  to  pay,  as  proposed,  if 
that  will  end  the  matter.' 

"  I  append  a  copy  of  an  elaborate  report  which  I  made  to 
the  attorney-general,  in  which  I  fully  discussed  the  difficul 
ties  of  the  case,  which  report  I  beg  that  you  will  send  to 
General  Raum. 

"  I  Avrote  that  report  after  full  consideration  of  the  ques 
tion  whether  the  case  ought  to  be  dismissed  without  costs. 


THE    INCOME-TAX   PERSECUTION  251 

"  I  think  that  the  commissioner  of  internal  revenue  will 
feel  it  due  to  us,  either  to  take  the  responsibility  himself 
of  ordering  the  case  to  be  dismissed  without  costs,  or  to 
accept  the  compromise  offered,  or  to  direct  the  cause  to  be 
tried,  or  to  throw  the  responsibility  upon  us. 

"I  am  very  truly  yours, 
"  (Signed)  EDWARDS  PIERREPONT, 

"  Special  Counsel  for  the  United  States." 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  the  Commissioner  of 
Internal  Revenue. 

"  (Copy.) 

"  TREASURY  DEPARTMENT, 
"WASHINGTON,  D.C.,  May  23,  1882. 
"HoN.  GREEN  B.  EAUM,  Commissioner  Internal  Revenue: 

"  SIR  :  You  have  placed  before  me  a  letter  from  Hon. 
Edwards  Pierrepont,  and  one  from  the  United  States 
attorney  at  New  York  city,  in  the  matter  of  the  suit  of 
the  United  States  v.  Samuel  J.  Tilden.  It  is  a  case  that 
should  not  be  brought  to  trial  without  a  reasonable  prospect 
of  success.  It  is  one  also  in  which,  if  there  is  no  reason 
able  prospect  of  success,  there  should  be  no  attempt  to  try 
it ;  nor  should  any  terms  be  insisted  upon,  or  sought,  upon 
throwing  it  up.  Of  course  I  intend  to  place  upon  the 
counsel  for  the  government  the  responsibility  of  advising 
as  to  the  prospect  of  success,  or  rather,  I  intend  to  leave 
that  responsibility  upon  them,  as  of  right  it  belongs  there. 
I  suppose  that  you  have  given  to  counsel  all  the  facts  that 
you  are  able  to  supply.  It  is  for  counsel  to  determine  and 
advise  whether  they  are  enough  to  warrant  the  trial  of  the 
suit.  If  they  furnish  a  fair  prospect  of  success  on  a  trial, 
it  should  be  had  at  once.  If  they  do  not,  the  case  should 
be  discontinued.  It  is  due  to  the  citizen  that  he  be  brought 
to  trial,  or  that  he  be  freed  from  the  expectation  of  it. 
And  if  there  is  not  enough  in  the  facts  to  refuse  him  the 
latter,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  just  or  worthy  of  the  govern 
ment  that  it  exact  or  take  from  him  a  price  for  the  privilege. 

"Respectfully,  etc., 
"  (Signed)  CHARLES  J.  FOLGER, 

"  Secretary  Treasury." 


252  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

The  Attorney- General  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

"  (COPY.) 

"DEPARTMENT  OF  JUSTICE, 

"WASHINGTON,  July  21,  1882. 

"Sm:  On  the  21st  of  June  were  sent  to  me  the  papers 
pertaining  to  the  suit  of  the  United  States  against  Samuel 
J.  Tilden  for  my  further  examination.  With  this  I  return 
those  papers  to  you,  having  given  the  subject  my  consider 
ation.  Among  the  papers  I  found  your  letter  of  May  23, 
1882,  to  Hon.  Green  B.  Eaum,  Commissioner  of  Internal 
Revenue.  I  will  not  undertake  to  review  the  subject,  as  I 
cannot  express  in  more  plain  and  direct  terms  the  convic 
tions  that  I  entertain  and  the  conclusions  I  have  arrived  at 
than  you  have  expressed  them  in  that  letter.  I  concur  in 
all  you  say.  You  explain  the  true  policy  and  principle 
that  should  regulate  the  proceedings  on  behalf  of  the  gov 
ernment  against  Mr.  Tilden.  The  last  sentence  of  your 
letter  propounds  the  rule  by  which  the  case  should  be 
regulated.  You  say :  '  It  is  due  to  the  citizen  that  he  be 
brought  to  trial,  or  that  he  be  freed  from  the  expectation  of 
it.  And  if  there  is  not  enough  in  the  facts  to  make  it  proper 
to  refuse  him  the  latter,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  just  or 
worthy  of  the  government  that  it  exact  or  take  from  him  a 
price  for  the  privilege.' 

"  I  am  positively  opposed,  as  a  point  of  principle  and  in 
tegrity  of  governmental  action,  in  cases  like  these,  to  have 
them  pursued  when  they  should  not  be,  and  to  surrender 
them  only  on  condition  of  receiving  from  the  defendant 
compensation  to  pay  the  counsel  of  the  government.  It  is 
beneath  the  dignity  of  the  government  to  stoop  to  such  a 
settlement  of  any  such  case.  It  would  result  in  corrupt 
practices  of  the  most  frightful  kind  if  the  legal  officers  of 
the  government  could  institute  suits  which  they  could  not 
maintain,  and  then  compound  them  by  exacting  large  sums 
of  money  from  the  defendants  ;  selling  their  peace  to  them 
as  a  purchasable  commodity.  The  mere  thought  of  such 
things  is  odious. 

"Your  letter  is  addressed  to  Mr.  Raum.  As  the  district 
attorney  is  directly  under  my  control,  is  it  your  desire 
that  I  shall  communicate  these  views  to  him?  Mr.  Raum 
may  hesitate  to  do  so.  It  seems  there  have  been  private 


THE    INCOME-TAX   PERSECUTION  253 

counsel  employed  upon  behalf  of  the  government.  To 
that  gentleman  Mr.  Raum  may  have  conveyed  your  ideas. 
If  he  has  not,  I  will  do  it  if  you  so  instruct  me. 

"I  have  the  honor  to  be,  with  great  respect,  your  obedi 
ent  servant, 

"  BENJAMIN  HARRIS  BREWSTER, 

"  Attorney-  General. 
"HoN.  CHAS.  J.  FOLGER, 

"  Secretary  of  the  Treasury." 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  the  Attorney- General. 

"TREASURY  DEPARTMENT,  July  25,  1882. 
"HoN.    BENJAMIN   HARRIS    BREWSTER,    Attorney- General, 
Department  of  Justice: 

"  SIR  :  I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of 
your  letter  of  the  21st  instant,  in  which  you  are  pleased  to 
express  your  concurrence  in  all  that  was  said  in  my  letter 
of  the  23d  of  May  last  to  Commissioner  Eaum,  in  regard 
to  '  the  true  policy  and  principle  that  should  regulate  the 
proceedings  on  behalf  of  the  government,'  in  the  suit 
pending  against  Samuel  J.  Tilden. 

"  In  reply  to  your  inquiry  as  to  communicating  those 
views  to  the  United  States  attorney,  and  to  the  private 
counsel  employed  by  the  government  in  this  case,  I  have 
the  honor  to  say  that  my  letter  to  Commissioner  Rauni 
has  been  made  known  to  Judge  Pierrepont ;  and,  there 
fore,  all  that  is  now  needed,  in  my  judgment,  is  for  the 
attorney-general  to  inform  the  United  States  attorney  at 
New  York,  and  Judge  Pierrepont,  that  the  Department  of 
Justice  and  the  Treasury  Department  concur  in  the  views 
put  forth  in  my  letter  to  Commissioner  Raum,  and  that 
it  is  for  counsel  and  the  court  to  say  what  shall  be  done 
with  the  case,  according  to  the  rules  and  practice  of  the 
court. 

"  Very  respectfully, 

"  (Signed)  CHAS.  J.  FOLGER, 

Secretary. 


254  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 


United  States  Attorney  Stuart  L.  Woodford  to  Green  B. 
Raum,  the  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue. 

11  OFFICE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  ATTORNEY 

FOR  THE  SOUTHERN  DISTRICT  OF  NEW  YORK, 

"NEW  YORK,  Oct.  7,  1882. 

"  THE  HON.  GREEN  B.  RAUM,  Commissioner  of  Internal 
Revenue : 

"  GENERAL  :  Having  determined  as  to  the  final  disposition 
of  the  income-tax  case  against  Mr.  Tilden,  I  beg  to  present 
this  report  of  the  case. 

"It  was  commenced  by  my  immediate  predecessor  in 
office,  the  Hon.  George  Bliss,  by  filing  a  prcecipe  in  our 
District  Court  on  Jan.  22,  1877,  two  days  before  he  went 
out  of  office. 

"  The  case  continued  through  various  stages  of  intricate 
litigation  until  Aug.  1,  1879,  when  Revenue  Agent  E.  D. 
Webster  reported  to  me  by  your  direction  to  investigate 
the  facts  and  procure  necessary  evidence. 

"He  was  engaged  on  this  duty  until  the  spring  of  1880, 
when  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  case  was  as  well 
prepared  as  was  within  our  then  power,  and  should  be 
tried  at  the  April  term,  1880.  Witnesses  were  subpoenaed 
and  arrangements  made  for  the  trial. 

"  There  seemed  to  me  an  additional  reason  for  the  trial 
then. 

"Mr.  Tilden  had  been  candidate  for  the  presidency  in 
1876.  During  that  canvass  the  allegations  were  made,  out 
of  which  this  suit  grew.  In  January,  1877,  after  that  can 
vass  had  closed,  the  suit  was  begun. 

"  In  the  spring  of  1880  his  name  was  again  frequently 
mentioned  for  a  like  candidacy.  I  thought  the  case  should 
be  tried  then  and  decided.  This  seemed  to  me  most  dig 
nified  for  the  government,  and  most  just  to  Mr.  Tilden. 

"  Mr.  Webster,  however,  reported  that  we  were  not  then 
ready  on  the  facts.  Of  the  special  counsel  for  the  govern 
ment,  Judge  Pierrepont  did  not  think  we  could  safely  go 
to  trial,  while  our  other  associate,  Judge  Arnoux,  advised 
trial.  The  then  attorney-general,  Mr.  Devens,  agreed 
with  Judge  Pierrepont. 

"  Meanwhile,  Mr.  Tilden's  counsel  applied  for  postpone 
ment  on  ground  of  his  poor  health.  Then,  against  my 


THE    INCOME-TAX   PERSECUTION  255 

judgment,  and  on  the  direction  of  the  attorney-general, 
communicated  through  Judge  Pierrepont,  the  case  was 
postponed,  on  March  29,  1880,  to  the  November  term  of 
that  year. 

"  Since  then  there  has  been  no  term  of  our  District 
Court  at  which  this  case  could  be  tried,  consistently  with 
the  engagements  of  our  judges  and  the  condition  of  the 
calendar,  until  February,  1882. 

"In  September,  1881,  President  Garfield  died. 

"In  the  preceding  July,  after  he  had  been  shot,  and 
while  the  entire  country  was  forgetting  old  differences  and 
uniting  in  sympathy,  I  felt  and  advised  Judge  Pierrepont 
that  it  would  be  wise  for  President  Garfield,  on  his  expected 
recovery,  to  stop  this  suit  himself. 

"  On  the  accession  of  President  Arthur  it  seemed  to  me 
still  more  wise,  as  matter  of  public  policy,  to  discontinue 
this  litigation,  and  to  do  this  without  exacting  any  costs  or 
conditions,  but  simply  as  an  act  of  grace  from  the  govern 
ment  to  a  citizen. 

"After  full  consultation  with  Judge  Pierrepont,  he 
came  to  the  further  decision,  that  owing  to  lapse  of  time, 
death  of  witnesses,  payment  by  Mr.  Tilden  of  such  taxes  as 
the  government  officers  had  assessed  against  him,  and  for 
other  reasons  fully  set  forth  in  his  subsequent  report  to  the 
attorney-general,  dated  Nov.  27,  1881,  it  would  be  unwise 
to  try  the  case. 

"These  two  methods  of  discontinuance  were  open.  One 
was  to  discontinue  without  costs.  This  I  then  advised. 
The  other  was  to  accept  an  offer  which  was  about  that  time 
made  by  Mr.  Vanderpoel  to  Judge  Pierrepont,  that  Mr. 
Tilden  would  pay  all  the  costs  and  expenses  incurred  by 
the  government  in  bringing  and  preparing  the  suit  for  trial. 
Judge  Pierrepont  favored  accepting  this  proposition  because 
he  feared  that  if  we  dismissed  the  case  without  taking  the 
costs  which  were  voluntarily  offered  to  be  paid,  we  should 
run  the  risk  of  rendering  Mr.  Bliss  and  the  government, 
which  he  represented,  liable  to  the  suspicion  of  having 
threatened  a  groundless  action  against  Mr.  Tilden  during 
the  canvass  of  1876,  and  which  suit  was  in  fact  commenced 
two  days  before  Mr.  Bliss  left  office.  Both  Judge  Pierre 
pont  and  I  thought,  as  lawyers,  that  there  had  been  proba 
ble  cause  for  bringing  the  suit,  and  were  unwilling  to  do  so, 
to  allow  anything  to  be  done  that  should  be  in  any  manner 


256  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

professionally  unjust  to  Mr.  Bliss  who  began,  or  myself 
who  had  continued,  the  case  which  I  had  found  in  the  office 
so  begun. 

"But  I  did  not  share  in  this  fear.  The  case  was  here. 
I  was  responsible  for  its  conduct,  and  was  willing  to  face 
whatever  just  criticism  my  management  of  it  might  in 
volve  . 

"  Thus  differing  in  opinion  as  to  what  we  should  advise, 
and  feeling  that  at  the  outset  of  a  new  administration  the 
President  should  be  himself  consulted  (as  Mr.  MacVeagh 
had  resigned  as  attorney-general),  I  wrote  the  President, 
on  Nov.  19,  1881,  stating  that  for  reasons  fully  dis 
cussed  between  Judge  Pierrepont  and  myself,  and  which  he 
would  fully  present  to  the  President,  I  agreed  in  advising 
the  discontinuance  of  the  suit  against  Mr.  Tilden  in  such 
manner  and  on  such  terms  as  the  President  might  think 
wisest. 

"  Judge  Pierrepont  presented  that  letter  to  the  President, 
had  full  consultation  with  him,  and  was  by  him  referred  to 
the  then  acting  attorney-general,  Mr.  Phillips.  The  latter 
considered  the  entire  subject,  having  before  him  the  full 
report  made  by  Judge  Pierrepont  on  Nov.  27,  1881, 
and  then,  under  date  of  Nov.  29,  1881,  he  wrote  me 
officially  that  the  case  should  be  submitted  to  the  commis 
sioner  of  internal  revenue  with  my  opinion  and  that  of 
Mr.  Pierrepont  as  to  the  chances  of  recovery,  and  also  with 
any  proposition  of  arrangement  suggested  by  the  defend 
ant.  The  acting  attorney-general  added  that  this  was  a 
suit  for  money,  the  recovery  of  which  had  been  obstructed 
by  accident,  and  that  the  preponderance  of  reasons  appeared 
to  favor  such  arrangement  as  should  be  attended  with  least 

O 

pecuniary  loss. 

"  Such  were  my  instructions  from  my  official  chief. 

"The  case  and  the  desired  opinions,  with  Mr.  Tilden's 
proposition  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  suit,  were  subse 
quently  submitted  to  you.  You  expressed  your  disinclina 
tion  to  exact  costs  or  terms  if  the  case  was  to  be  discon 
tinued. 

"The  papers  subsequently  went  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury.  He  returned  them  to  you  with  a  note  dated  May 
2,  1882,  of  which  you  sent  me  a  copy  on  May  18,  1882. 

"  This  note  stated  that  the  proposition  was  to  pay  the 
costs  and  expenses  of  the  suit  and  have  it  discontinued ; 


THE    INCOME-TAX   PERSECUTION  257 

that  the  government  recovers  nothing ;  that  if  there  is  any 
proof  on  which  the  government  has  an  expectation  of  re 
covering,  it  ought  to  go  on  with  the  suit ;  that  if  it  has  no 
proof  upon  which  it  expects  to  recover,  it  ought  to  discon 
tinue  the  suit ;  that  in  either  case  it  seemed  to  the  secretary 
solely  a  question  for  the  counsel  for  the  government ;  that 
they  should  decide  whether  to  go  on  or  whether  to  discon 
tinue  or  ask  leave  of  the  court  to  discontinue ;  that  there  is 
nothing  for  the  Treasury  Department  to  pass  upon  in  such 
a  proposition  as  this. 

"  On  May  20,  1882,  I  wrote  you,  acknowledging  receipt 
of  the  foregoing  and  asking  whether  I  was  to  understand 
that  if  after  consultation  with  Mr.  Pierrepont  we  both 
agree  that  this  action  cannot  now  be  prosecuted  with  any 
reasonable  prospect  of  success,  we  are  authorized  to  discon 
tinue  it  without  costs.  I  added  that  as  we  construed  the 
secretary's  note  this  was  his  decision.  I  wrote  you  thus, 
because  under  the  printed  regulations  of  your  bureau  I 
could  not  legally  discontinue  this  suit  without  your  express 
instructions. 

"  On  May  23,  1882,  you  again  wrote  me,  enclosing 
copy  of  a  second  letter  from  the  secretary,  in  which  you 
gave  me  the  express  authority  required.  This  letter  of  the 
secretary  also  stated  that  the  case  should  not  be  tried  with 
out  a  reasonable  prospect  of  success. 

"These  letters  were  received  on  May  24,  1882.  They 
were  submitted  to  Judge  Pierrepont  at  once.  Almost  im 
mediately  afterward,  on  the  same  day,  I  received  a  telegram 
from  you  directing  me  to  take  no  action  upon  your  letter  of 
the  day  before  in  the  Tilden  case  until  I  should  hear  further 
from  your  office  and  asking  me  to  answer.  Accordingly  I 
telegraphed  you  in  reply  that  day,  acknowledging  receipt 
of  your  order  and  promising  to  obey  your  instructions  and 
take  no  action  until  I  heard  further  from  your  office. 

"  The  next  day,  May  25th,  I  received  a  letter  from 
Secretary  Folger,  dated  May  20th,  but  evidently  written 
May  24th,  stating  that  he  would  probably  be  in  New  York 
city  the  next  week,  when  he  would  try  to  see  me  on  the 
matter  of  the  Tilden  case.  He  added  that  there  were  con 
siderations  which  had  come  to  him  since  writing  his  letter 
of  the  day  before  to  General  Raum  which  he  desired  to 
confer  with  me  upon.  He  also  stated  that  you  (General 
Raum)  had  just  shown  him  my  telegraphic  message  in 

VOL.  II.-17 


258  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

answer  to  your  message  sent  to  me  that  morning,  which 
latter  was  sent  at  his  suggestion. 

"Although  Secretary  Folger  came  to  New  York  soon 
afterward,  we  did  not  meet.  He  never  stated  to  me  the  con 
siderations  on  which  he  had  ordered  me,  through  you,  to 
take  no  further  action  on  your  letter  of  May  23d,  in  regard 
to  the  Tilden  case  until  I  should  hear  further  from  your 
office.  Nor  have  I  ever  had  the  advantage  of  the  confer 
ence  with  him  that  he  so  considerately  suggested. 

"  After  the  receipt  of  your  telegram  of  May  24,  and  the 
secretary's  said  letter,  I  did  not  hear  further  from  your 
office  until  July  27th  last,  when  I  received  your  letter  of 
July  26th,  covering  copies  of  letters  from  Attorney-General 
Brewster  to  Secretary  Folger,  dated  July  21,  1882,  and  from 
the  secretary  to  the  attorney-general,  dated  July  25,  1882. 
These  letters  were  of  the  same  general  tenor  as  the  secre 
tary's  letter  of  May  23d  last,  and  left  the  matter  to  my 
final  decision  after  consultation  with  Judge  Pierrepont. 

"I  ought  here  to  say  that  as  Judge  Arnoux,  the  other 
special  counsel,  went  on  the  bench  of  our  Superior  Court 
on  Jan.  1,  1882,  I  have  not  consulted  with  him  as  to  this 
case  since  that  date. 

"  As  the  secretary  arrested  the  operation  of  his  instruc 
tions  of  May  23d  last  from  May  24th  to  July  25th,  for 
considerations  that  must  have  seemed  to  him  serious  and 
weighty,  I  feel  that  I  ought  to  reexamine  the  case  care 
fully,  and  I  asked  Judge  Pierrepont  to  do  the  same. 

"  Yesterday  I  received  his  carefully  reconsidered  opinion, 
in  which  he  adheres  to  his  former  advice  that  the  case 
ought  now  to  be  discontinued. 

"  After  thinking  the  whole  matter  over  I  have  decided 
that  there  is  not  a  sufficient  prospect  of  success  to  justify 
the  long,  expensive,  and  difficult  trial  which  will  be  neces 
sary  to  present  this  complicated  case  fully  to  the  court. 
The  trial  would  necessarily  occupy  from  four  to  eight 
weeks,  and  the  result  would  be  very  doubtful. 

"  I  accordingly  have  this  day  sent  to  Mr.  Tilden's  coun 
sel  a  consent  to  discontinue  without  costs. 

"  Very  respectfully, 
"  (Signed)  STEWART  L.  WOODFORD, 

"United  States  Attorney." 


THE    INCOME-TAX   PERSECUTION  259 


ORDER   OF   DISCONTINUANCE. 

"At  a  stated  term  of  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  United 
States  for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York,  held  at  the 
United  States  Court  Koonis  in  the  Post-Office  Building,  on 
the  twenty-third  day  of  October,  1882. 

"  Present : 

"HoN.  CHARLES  L.  BENEDICT, 

"  Judge. 

"THE  UNITED  STATES 
OF  AMERICA 

AGAINST 

SAMUEL  J.  TILDEN. 

"  The  original  action  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United 
States  for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York  between  the 
same  parties  having  been  discontinued,  and  the  appeal 
heretofore  taken  from  the  decree  entered  in  this  action 
having  been  dismissed  and  the  proceedings  remitted  to  this 
court,  now,  on  reading  and  filing  the  consent  of  the 
United  States  attorney,  it  is 

"  Ordered,  That  this  action  be  and  the  same  is  hereby 
discontinued  without  costs  to  either  party  as  against  the 
other. 

"  (Signed)  CHARLES  L.  BENEDICT." 

Thus  ended  a  vexatious  litigation  instituted  solely  for 
the  purpose  of  defaming  and  discrediting  the  most  em 
inent  statesman  in  the  countiy;  instituted,  too,  without 
any  evidence,  at  the  instigation  of  a  painfully  notorious 
public  officer,  "  because  of  a  belief  founded  upon  the  recog 
nized  fact  of  Mr.  Tilden's  great  wealth,  much  of  which 
was  understood  to  have  been  accumulated  during  the  tax 
period." 

For  six  long  years  Mr.  Tilden  was  subjected  to  the 
expense  of  employing  counsel  and  holding  himself  con 
stantly  ready  for  a  trial  of  a  suit,  on  the  admission  of 
its  own  officers,  the  government  never  had  any  evidence 


260  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

upon  which  it  could  be  prosecuted  with  any  prospect  of 
success. 

A  Republican  form  of  government  has  always  the  power, 
and  sometimes  the  disposition,  to  be  despotic  and  oppres 
sive.  Of  this  a  more  flagrant  illustration  than  the  one  just 
recited  had  rarely  occurred. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

The  purchase  of  Gray  stone  —  Dinner  to  J.  S.  Morgan  —  Mr.  Tilden  rebukes 
third-term  candidates  for  the  presidency  —  Withdraws  from  public 
life  —  Letter  to  Mr.  Manning  declaring  the  presidential  nomination 
in  1880 — The  Cincinnati  convention  —  Urged  for  a  renomination 
in  1884  —  Second  letter  of  declension. 

IN  the  summer  of  1879  Mr.  Tilden  thought  to  benefit  his 
health  by  establishing  a  home,  for  at  least  a  portion  of  the 
year,  in  the  country.  He  leased  for  the  summer,  and  be 
fore  the  expiration  of  the  lease  purchased,  the  noble  estate 
since  widely  known  as  Gray  stone  at  Yonkers,  on  the  Hud 
son,  then  about  three  miles  beyond  the  northernmost  limit 
of  New  York  city.  The  property  consisted  of  sixty-three 
and  one-third  acres  of  land,  and  a  palatial  stone  dwelling 
which  had  been  recently  finished,  on  the  highest  ground  on 
the  river's  bank  south  of  the  Highlands.  To  this  estate 
he  subsequently  added  forty-eight  adjoining  acres.  The 
structure,  the  view,  the  air,  the  facilities  of  access  to  the 
city,  everything  about  the  place,  was  suited  to  his  taste 
and  his  needs.  If  he  had  not  by  this  time  abandoned  all 
thought  of  returning  to  public  life,  he  had  ceased  to  regard 
such  a  prospect  with  pleasure.  He  found  all  the  employ 
ment  and  recreation  he  required  in  improving  and  stocking 
his  new  home.  Thither  he  transported  a  portion  of  his 
library,  in  the  seclusion  of  which  he  now  enjoyed  a  wel 
come  exemption  from  the  incessant  interruptions  to  which 
he  was  exposed  in  Gramercy  park.  Gray  stone  soon  be 
came,  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  he  had  anticipated,  his 
home.  Here  he  received  his  friends  with  a  generous 
hospitality.  Though  ceasing  to  take  any  responsibility  for 
the  leadership  of  the  party,  his  views  of  public  matters 
continued  to  be  sought  and  his  judgment  deferred  to  as 


262  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

much  as  ever.  He  appeared  rarely  before  the  public, 
though  scarcely  an  editor  in  the  land  ventured  to  send  his 
paper  to  press  without  some  allusion  to  him. 

In  the  fall  of  1877  he  consented  to  preside  at  a  dinner 
given  to  the  late  J.  S.  Morgan,  then  head  of  the  banking 

t3  O          7  O 

house  of  J.  S.  Morgan  and  Company,  of  London.  In  the 
course  of  the  speech,  in  which  he  proposed  the  health  of 
Mr.  Morgan,  he  referred,  in  a  humorous  way,  to  the  very 
small  share  that  the  proprietors  of  colossal  fortunes  can 
appropriate  to  their  personal  use.  It  is  the  only  instance, 
I  believe,  of  his  ever  alluding  in  a  public  discourse  or  paper 
to  the  burdens  or  perquisites  of  wealth. 

"I  remember,  when  I  was  quite  a  young  man,  being  sent 
for  by  one  of  the  ablest  men  I  have  ever  known,  — a  great 
statesman  and  a  great  thinker,  — Martin  Van  Buren,  who 
wanted  to  consult  me  about  his  will.  Well,  I  walked  with 
him  all  over  his  farm  one  afternoon,  and  I  heard  what  he 
had  to  say,  with  the  previous  knowledge  (not  from  him) 
that  I  was  trustee  under  his  will.  The  next  morning,  as  I 
stood  before  his  broad  and  large  wood-fire,  I  stated  the 
result  of  my  reflections.  I  said  :  '  It  is  not  well  to  be  wiser 
than  events ;  to  attempt  to  control  the  far  future,  which  no 
man  can  foresee ;  to  trust  one's  grandchildren,  whom  one 
does  not  know,  out  of  distrust,  without  special  cause,  of 
one's  children,  whom  one  does  know.'  I  came  home,  and 
after  a  week  I  received  a  letter  from  him  stating  that  he 
had  thought  much  about  the  suggestion  as  to  attempting 
to  be  wiser  than  events,  and  had  abandoned  all  the  com 
plicated  trusts  by  which  he  had  proposed  tying  up  his 
property ;  and  he  submitted  to  me  a  simple  form  accord 
ing  to  the  laws  of  the  land  and  the  laws  of  nature,  which 
was  approved  and  adopted. 

"  I  went  down  to  Roehampton  last  summer  to  see  the 
beautiful  country  home  of  my  friend  Mr.  Morgan,  a  few 
miles  out  of  London.  He  was  well  pleased  to  show  me 
about  everywhere.  No  man  could  help  being  delighted 
with  what  I  saw,  and  he  was  curious  to  know  what  were 
my  impressions.  Well,  I  had,  while  inspecting  with  pleas 
ure  the  appliances  of  comfort  and  luxury,  been  thinking 
how  much,  after  all,  he  got  for  himself  out  of  his  great 


PRESIDENT    GRANT  AND    THE    THIRD  TERM    263 

wealth  and  great  business ;  how  much  he  was  able  to 
apply  to  his  own  use ;  what  sort  of  wages  he  got  for 
managing  the  great  establishment  at  No.  22  Old  Broad 
street,  in  London ;  and  I  said  to  him :  '  I  don't  see  but 
what  you  are  a  trustee  here  :  you  get  only  your  food,  your 
clothing,  your  shelter.'  Of  course  a  man  may  have  some 
delight  in  a  sense  of  power,  in  a  sense  of  consequence  ;  but 
I  rather  thought  his  coachman  beat  him  in  that  particular. 
And,  on  the  whole,  I  thought  aloud  —  I  could  not  help  it. 
I  told  him  he  was  a  trustee  with  a  very  handsome  salary, 
doing  very  well ;  but  I  could  not  see  that  he  got  much 
more  than  any  of  the  rest  of  the  people  about  the  place. 
Well,  I  did  hear,  when,  soon  after,  I  went  down  to  22 
Old  Broad  street,  that  he  was  rather  late  to  business  the 
next  morning.  But  I  will  do  him  the  justice  to  say  that  he 
faithfully  applied  himself  to  his  duties  as  trustee,  and  that 
he  was  as  diligent  as  though  he  had  some  personal  interest 
in  the  great  aifairs  he  is  managing." 

Mr.  Tilden  was  invited  to  dine  with  the  Democratic 
Association  of  Massachusetts,  on  the  anniversary  of  Wash 
ington's  birthday  in  1880.  General  Grant  was  still  a 
candidate  for  the  presidency  for  a  third  term,  and  was 
warmly  supported  by  the  Kepublicans  of  Massachusetts. 
In  his  letter  excusing  his  absence,  Mr.  Tilden  took  an 
opportunity  of  repeating  his  views  of  third-term  candidates 
for  the  presidency.  He  said  : 

"  Nothing  could  be  more  fit  at  the  present  time  than  to 
commemorate  that  day.  It  was  the  Father  of  his  Country, 
'  first  in  war,  first  in  peace,  and  first  in  the  hearts  of  his 
countrymen,'  who  set  the  original  example  against  a  third 
term  in  the  presidential  office.  He  made  that  memorable 
precedent  as  a  guide  to  all  his  successors,  and  as  an  un 
written  law  of  the  American  people.  He  did  so  in  the  light 
of  a  prevalent  fear  in  the  minds  of  the  most  ardent  of  the 
patriots  who  have  achieved  our  national  independence,  and 
created  our  system  of  free  government,  that  indefinite  re- 
eligibility  would  degenerate  into  a  practical  life-tenure. 

"The  vast  power  acquired  by  the  federal  government 
over  the  elections  by  its  office-holders,  its  patronage,  the 
money  it  levies,  and  its  various  forms  of  corrupt  influence, 


264  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

have    developed  this    danger,  until  it  darkens   the  whole 
future  of  our  country. 

"  In  the  choice  between  the  republic  and  the  empire,  we 
must  believe  that  the  people  will  be  true  to  their  ancestry 
and  to  mankind." 

Mr.  Tilden  continued  to  be  regarded  as  the  necessary 
and  inevitable  candidate  of  his  party  for  the  presidency  in 
1880.  The  name  of  no  other  candidate  was  seriously  dis 
cussed.  He  was  persecuted  with  unrelenting  virulence  by 
the  administration,  and  the  Republican  press  neglected  no 
opportunity  of  refreshing  the  memory  of  its  readers  in 
regard  to  his  imputed  capacities  for  wickedness,  and  the 
wholly  imaginary  value  of  his  public  services.  The  Dem 
ocratic  press  and  politicians,  on  the  other  hand,  continued 
to  speak  of  his  nomination  as  a  matter  of  course,  though 
without  any  authority  from  Mr.  Tilden  that  he  desired,  or 
even  would  accept,  a  renomination  if  tendered.  They 
knew,  of  course,  that  he  would  accept  a  renomination  if 
his  health  would  permit ;  and  the  evidences  of  unimpaired 
mental  power  and  political  resource  he  was  constantly 
displaying  caused  his  health  to  be  regarded  by  the  public 
as  a  very  insignificant  factor  in  the  case.  It  was  not  so  with 
Mr.  Tilden,  however.  He  wished  a  renomination  and  an 
opportunity  of  proving,  by  his  reelection,  that  the  country 
had  been  fraudulently  deprived  of  its  choice  for  the  presi 
dency  in  1876.  He  was  slow  in  making  up  his  mind  that 
he  was  unequal  to  the  worries  of  a  candidate,  or  for  the 
more  serious  responsibilities  of  a  chief  magistrate.  But 
however  blind  his  partisans  and  friends  were  or  pretended 
to  be  about  his  health,  he  had  no  longer  any  illusions  upon 
the  subject  himself.  He  was  fully  conscious,  in  the  winter 
of  1879-80,  that  his  health  had  been  steadily  failing  since 
1876,  and  that  the  most  his  medical  advisers  had  done  or 
hoped  to  do  was  to  retard  a  little  the  ravages  of  the 
disease  which  was  held  by  the  profession  generally  to  be 
an  incurable  though  usually  a  lingering  one. 


NO    LONGER    WISHES    TO    BE   PRESIDENT       265 

I  had  been  trying  to  assist  him  one  day,  early  in  the 
spring  of  1880,  in  one  of  his  vexatious  litigations.  I  ob 
served  that  he  did  not  seem  to  have  the  full  command  of 
his  resources.  At  last  he  rose  from  his  seat,  and  with  an 
air  of  discouragement  on  his  face  as  well  as  in  the  tone  of 
his  voice,  said,  "Let  us  go  and  take  a  ride."  As  we  rode 
up  the  avenue  and  after  a  protracted  silence  he  spoke  of  the 
decline  of  force  and  intellectual  endurance,  of  which  he 
had  just  experienced  such  unequivocal  evidence,  and  then 
added  in  a  rather  querulous  tone,  as  if  responding  to  some 
unwelcome  pressure  from  without,  "  If  I  am  no  longer  fit 
to  prepare  a  case  for  trial,  I  am  not  fit  to  be  President  of 
the  United  States."  He  then  turned  and  looked  at  me  as 
if  I  was  his  persecutor  and  he  expected  me  to  tell  him  what 
I  had  to  say  in  my  defence.  "  Governor,  "  I  replied,  "I  am 
the  last  person  in  the  world  to  urge  you  to  run  for  the 
presidency.  No  one  has  a  right  to  ask  you  to  accept  such 
a  burden  at  the  risk  of  your  life,  and  there  is  no  use  in 
trying  to  disguise  the  fact  that  there  is  nothing  which 
would  more  imperil  your  health  than  the  inevitable  excite 
ment  of  a  canvass  for  the  presidency  and  the  first  six 
months'  service  to  which  an  election  would  expose  you." 

I  think  that  from  this  day  forth  he  had  satisfied  himself 
that  he  did  not  wish  to  be  a  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
and  was  determined  not  to  be  a  party  to  any  proceedings 
designed  to  make  him  President.  He  said  to  me  on 
another  occasion,  "It  takes  all  my  time  to  live,"  so  numer 
ous  were  the  hygienic  precautions  he  found  it  necessary  to 
take  to  meet  the  inevitable  demands  upon  his  strength  even 
as  a  private  citizen.  His  farm  and  his  library  were  now  to 
him  what  the  muse  was  to  Pope, — his  chief  reliance  in 
helping  him  through  "that  long  disease,  his  life." 

Though  conscious  that  it  was  as  much  as  his  life    was 

O 

worth  to  accept  a  renomination,  the  consequences  to  the 
party  of  refusing  to  run  put  on  every  day  a  more  serious 
and  perplexing  aspect.  Friends  from  every  part  of  the 


266  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

country  were  telling  him  that  he  was  the  only  one  who 
could  keep  the  party  together.  The  Democratic  press,  with 
practical  unanimity,  refused  to  consider  the  chances  of  any 
other  candidate  ;  while  the  defeat  of  Robinson  for  gover 
nor  in  New  York,  at  the  fall  election,  had  made  the  success 
of  any  new  candidate  extremely  doubtful.  But  what  at 
that  time  weighed  more,  perhaps,  than  any  of  these  con 
siderations  with  Mr.  Tilden  was  the  apprehension  that  if 
he  withdrew,  the  friends  of  Mr.  Hendricks  might  profit  by 
the  vis  inertia  of  the  old  ticket,  and  insist  upon  his  being 
placed  at  its  head,  which  could  only  have  resulted  in 
disaster  if  the  electoral  vote  of  New  York  State  should 
prove  necessary  to  success,  and  that  it  would  prove  nec 
essary  at  that  time  no  practical  politician  entertained  a 
doubt.  It  was  a  profounder  sense  of  the  difficulties  of 
either  course  —  running  or  withdrawing  —  than  was  pos 
sessed,  perhaps,  by  any  other  statesman  in  the  country 
that  led  him  to  defer  until  the  meeting  of  the  convention 
in  June  the  promulgation  of  his  desire  not  to  be  regarded 
as  a  candidate  for  a  renomination.  His  letter,  addressed  to 
the  delegates  of  New  York  on  this  occasion,  is  in  some 
respects  one  of  the  most  impressive  papers  that  ever  came 
from  the  pen  of  any  American  statesman. 


PRESIDENCY. 

"NEW  YORK,  June  18,  1880. 

"  To  the  Delegates  from  the   State  of  New  York   to   the 
Democratic  National  Convention : 

"Your  first  assembling  is  an  occasion  on  which  it  is 
proper  for  me  to  state  to  you  my  relations  to  the  nomina 
tion  for  the  presidency,  which  you  and  your  associates  are 
commissioned  to  make  in  behalf  of  the  Democratic  party 
of  the  United  States. 

"  Having  passed  my  early  years  in  an  atmosphere  filled 
with  traditions  of  the  war  which  secured  our  national 
independence,  and  of  the  struggles  which  made  our  con- 


DECLINES   A    RENOMINATION  267 

stitutional  system  a  government  for  the  people,  by  the 
people,  I  learned  to  idealize  the  institutions  of  my  country, 
and  was  educated  to  believe  it  the  duty  of  a  citizen  of  the 
Republic  to  take  his  fair  allotment  of  care  and  trouble 
in  public  affairs.  I  fulfilled  that  duty  to  the  best  of  my 
ability  for  forty  years  as  a  private  citizen.  Although, 
during  all  my  life,  giving  at  least  as  much  thought  and 
effort  to  public  affairs  as  to  all  other  objects,  I  have  never 
accepted  official  service  except  for  a  brief  period,  for  a 
special  purpose,  and  only  when  the  occasion  seemed  to 
require  of  me  that  sacrifice  of  private  preferences  to  public 
interests.  My  life  has  been  substantially  that  of  a  private 
citizen. 

"It  was,  I  presume,  the  success  of  efforts,  in  which  as  a 
private  citizen  I  had  shared,  to  overthrow  a  corrupt  com 
bination  then  holding  dominion  in  our  metropolis,  and  to 
purify  the  judiciary  which  had  become  its  tool,  that  induced 
the  Democracy  of  the  State  in  1874  to  nominate  me  for 
governor.  This  was  done  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  a 
minority,  that  the  part  I  had  borne  in  those  reforms  had 
created  antagonisms  fatal  to  me  as  a  candidate.  I  felt  con 
strained  to  accept  the  nomination  as  the  most  certain  means 
of  putting  the  power  of  the  gubernatorial  office  on  the  side 
of  reform,  and  of  removing  the  impression,  wherever  it 
prevailed,  that  the  faithful  discharge  of  one's  duty  as  a 
citizen  is  fatal  to  his  usefulness  as  a  public  servant. 

"  The  breaking  up  of  the  canal  ring,  the  better  manage 
ment  of  our  public  works,  the  large  reduction  of  taxes,  and 
other  reforms  accomplished  during  my  administration, 
doubtless  occasioned  my  nomination  for  the  presidency  by 
the  Democracy  of  the  Union,  in  the  hope  that  similar  pro 
cesses  would  be  applied  to  the  federal  government.  From 
the  responsibilities  of  such  an  undertaking,  appalling  as  it 
seemed  to  me,  I  did  not  feel  at  liberty  to  shrink. 

"In  the  canvass  which  ensued,  the  Democratic  party 
represented  reform  in  the  administration  of  the  federal  gov 
ernment,  and  a  restoration  of  our  complex  political  system 
to  the  pure  ideals  of  its  founders.  Upon  these  issues  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  by  a  majority  of  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  million,  chose  a  majority  of  the  electors  to 
cast  their  votes  for  the  Democratic  candidates  for  President 
and  Vice-President.  It  is  my  right  and  privilege  here  to 
say  that  I  was  nominated  and  elected  to  the  presidency 


268  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

absolutely  free  from  any  engagement  in  respect  to  the 
exercise  of  its  powers  or  the  disposal  of  its  patronage. 
Through  the  whole  period  of  my  relation  to  the  presidency 
I  did  everything  in  my  power  to  elevate  and  nothing  to 
lower  moral  standards  in  the  competition  of  parties. 

"  By  what  nefarious  means  the  basis  of  a  false  count  was 
laid  in  several  of  the  States,  I  need  not  recite.  These  are 
now  matters  of  history,  about  which,  whatever  diversity  of 
opinion  may  have  existed  in  either  of  the  great  parties  of 
the  country  at  the  time  of  their  consummation,  has  since 
practically  disappeared. 

"I  refused  to  ransom  from  the  Eeturning  Boards  of 
Southern  States  the  documentary  evidence,  by  the  suppres 
sion  of  which,  and  by  the  substitution  of  fraudulent  and 
forged  papers,  a  pretext  was  made  for  the  perpetration  of 
a  false  count. 

"  The  constitutional  duty  of  the  two  Houses  of  Congress 
to  count  the  electoral  votes  as  cast,  and  give  effect  to  the 
will  of  the  people  as  expressed  by  their  suffrages,  w^as 
never  fulfilled.  An  Electoral  Commission,  for  the  existence 
of  which  I  have  no  responsibility,  was  formed,  and  to  it 
the  two  Houses  of  Congress  abdicated  their  duty  to  make 
the  count,  by  a  law  enacting  that  the  count  of  the  commis 
sion  should  stand  as  lawful  unless  overruled  by  the  concur 
rent  action  of  the  two  Houses.  Its  false  count  was  not 
overruled,  owing  to  the  complicity  of  a  Kepublican  Senate 
with  the  Republican  majority  of  the  commission. 

"  Controlled  by  its  Republican  majority  of  eight  to  seven, 
the  Electoral  Commission  counted  out  the  men  elected  by 
the  people,  and  counted  in  the  men  not  elected  by  the 
people. 

"That  subversion  of  the  election  created  a  new  issue 
for  the  decision  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  tran 
scending  in  importance  all  questions  of  administration.  It 
involved  the  vital  principle  of  self-government  through 
elections  by  the  people. 

"  The  immense  growth  of  the  means  of  corrupt  influence 
over  the  ballot-box,  which  is  at  the  disposal  of  the  party 
having  possession  of  the  executive  administration,  had 
already  become  a  present  evil  and  a  great  danger,  tending 
to  make  elections  irresponsive  to  public  opinion,  hampering 
the  power  of  the  people  to  change  their  rulers,  and  enabling 
the  men  holding  the  machinery  of  government  to  continue 


DECLINES   A    RENOMINATION  269 

and  perpetuate  their  power.  It  was  my  opinion  in  1876  that 
the  opposition  attempting  to  change  the  administration 
needed  to  include  at  least  two-thirds  of  the  voters  at  the 
opening  of  the  canvass  in  order  to  retain  a  majority  at  the 
election. 

"  If  after  such  obstacles  had  been  overcome,  and  a  ma 
jority  of  the  people  had  voted  to  change  the  administration 
of  their  government,  the  men  in  office  could  still  procure  a 
false  count  founded  upon  frauds,  perjuries,  and  forgeries 
furnishing  a  pretext  of  documentary  evidence  on  which  to 
base  that  false  count,  and  if  such  a  transaction  were  not 
only  successful,  but  if,  after  allotment  of  its  benefits  were 
made  to  its  contrivers,  abettors,  and  apologists  by  the  chief 
beneficiary  of  the  transaction,  it  were  condoned  by  the 
people,  a  practical  destruction  of  elections  by  the  people 
would  have  been  accomplished. 

"The  failure  to  install  the  candidates  chosen  by  the 
people,  a  contingency  consequent  upon  no  act  or  omission 
of  mine,  and  beyond  my  control,  has  left  me  for  the  last 
three  years,  and  until  now,  when  the  Democratic  party  by 
its  delegates  in  national  convention  assembled  shall  choose 
a  new  leader,  the  involuntary  but  necessary  representative 
of  this  momentous  issue. 

"As  such,  denied  the  immunities  of  private  life,  without 
the  powers  conferred  by  public  station,  subject  to  unceasing 
falsehoods  and  calumnies  from  the  partisans  of  an  admin 
istration  laboring  in  vain  to  justify  its  existence,  I  have, 
nevertheless,  steadfastly  endeavored  to  preserve  to  the 
Democratic  party  of  the  United  States  the  supreme  issue 
before  the  people  for  their  decision  next  November,  whether 
this  shall  be  a  government  by  the  sovereign  people  through 
elections,  or  a  government  by  discarded  servants  holding 
over  by  force  and  fraud.  And  I  have  withheld  no  sacrifice 
and  neglected  no  opportunity  to  uphold,  organize,  and  con 
solidate  against  the  enemies  of  representative  institutions, 
the  great  party  which  alone  under  God  can  effectually 
resist  their  overthrow. 

"  Having  now  borne  faithfully  my  full  share  of  labor  and 
care  in  the  public  service,  and  wearing  the  marks  of  its 
burdens,  I  desire  nothing  so  much  as  an  honorable  dis 
charge.  I  wish  to  lay  down  the  honors  and  toils  of  even 
quasi  party  leadership,  and  to  seek  the  repose  of  private 
life. 


270  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

"  In  renouncing  renomination  for  the  presidency,  I  do  so 
with  no  doubt  in  my  mind  as  to  the  vote  of  the  State  of 
New  York,  or  of  the  United  States,  but  because  I  believe 
that  it  is  a  renunciation  of  reelection  to  the  presidency. 

"  To  those  who  think  my  renomination  and  reelection  in 
dispensable  to  an  effectual  vindication  of  the  right  of  the 
people  to  elect  their  rulers, — violated  in  my  person,  —  I 
have  accorded  as  long  a  reserve  of  my  decision  as  possible, 
but  I  cannot  overcome  my  repugnance  to  enter  into  a  new 
engagement  which  involves  four  years  of  ceaseless  toil. 

"  The  dignity  of  the  presidential  office  is  above  a  merely 
personal  ambition,  but  it  creates  in  me  no  illusion.  Its 
value  is  as  a  great  power  for  good  to  the  country.  I  said 
four  years  ago  in  accepting  nomination  : 

"Knowing  as  I  do,  therefore,  from  fresh  experience, 
how  great  the  difference  is  between  gliding  through  an 
official  routine  and  working  out  a  reform  of  systems  and 
policies,  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  contemplate  what  needs 
to  be  done  in  the  federal  administration  without  an 
anxious  sense  of  the  difficulties  of  the  undertaking.  If 
summoned  by  the  suffrages  of  my  countrymen  to  attempt 
this  work,  I  shall  endeavor,  with  God's  help,  to  be  the 
efficient  instrument  of  their  will.' 

"  Such  a  work  of  renovation  after  many  years  of  misrule, 
such  a  reform  of  systems  and  policies,  to  which  I  would 
cheerfully  have  sacrificed  all  that  remained  to  me  of  health 
and  life,  is  now,  I  fear,  beyond  my  strength. 

"With  unfeigned  thanks  for  the  honors  bestowed  upon 
me  ;  with  a  heart  swelling  with  emotions  of  gratitude  to  the 
Democratic  masses  for  the  support  which  they  have  given 
to  the  cause  I  represented,  and  for  their  steadfast  confi 
dence  in  every  emergency,  I  remain, 

"  Your  fellow-citizen, 

"  SAMUEL  J.  TILDEN." 

This  was  not  such  a  letter  as  Mr.  Tilden  would  probably 
have  written  had  he  desired  to  render  his  renomination  im 
possible.  He  was  too  accomplished  a  politician  not  to 
know  that  it  was  not  only  the  true,  but  the  only  wise,  policy 
for  the  Democratic  party  to  renominate  the  old  ticket  and 
to  give  the  loyal  men  of  all  parties  an  opportunity  of 


THE    CINCINNATI    CONVENTION  271 

administering  a  national  rebuke  to  those  who  had  partici 
pated  in  or  connived  at  the  usurpation  of  the  chief  magis 
tracy.  Failure  to  renominate  the  old  ticket  was  to  deprive 
the  party  of  a  vital  issue  which  had  already  been  made, 
which  could  not  be  shirked ;  which,  not  bravely  to  meet, 
was  equivalent  to  a  capitulation,  and  would  in  all  prob 
ability  prove  fatal  to  any  other  candidate  that  could  be 
nominated. 

That  Mr.  Tilden  would  have  accepted  the  nomination  if 
tendered  to  him,  no  one  is  competent  to  affirm  or  deny. 
He  probably  did  not  know  himself.  I  was  under  the  im 
pression,  derived  rather  from  the  operations  of  my  own 
mind  than  from  anything  he  disclosed  of  his,  that  he 
wished  the  nomination  to  be  offered  him  to  save  the 
fr  fraud  "  issue  for  his  party,  intending,  if  offered,  to  decline 
it, —  a  course  which,  had  I  been  consulted,  I  should  certainly 
have  advised.  As  I  was  driving  with  him  one  day  near 
the  close  of  December  in  1879,  he  said  to  me,  "  I  must  talk 
with  some  one,  but  what  I  am  going  to  say  you  must  not 
allow  to  influence  your  conduct."  He  then  said,  referring 
to  the  condition  of  his  health,  that  he  did  not  see  how  it  was 
possible  for  him  to  go  through  the  excitement  of  another 
political  canvass. 

I  felt  that  the  idea  then  in  his  mind  was,  that  for  the 
sake  of  the  party  he  must  not  act  as  though  he  were  not 
to  run,  but  he  did  not  wish  me  to  labor  under  a  false  im 
pression  in  regard  to  his  purposes  or  expectations. 

Had  the  convention  nominated  him  it  would  probably 
have  paid  no  attention  to  his  declension,  presuming  from 
his  character  that  he  would  do  nothing  unnecessarily  em 
barrassing  to  his  party.  Had  he  promptly  declined  a  re- 
nomination,  as  I  believe  he  would  have  done,  there  is  little 
doubt  that  the  gallant  soldier  who  was  nominated,  had  he  in 
that  emergency  been  called  to  take  his  place  on  the  ticket, 
would  have  been  elected  by  a  larger  majority  than  Tilden 
himself  had  in  1876. 


272  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

There  were  too  many  candidates  for  the  presidency 
among  the  members  of  the  convention,  however,  and  too 
little  time  for  reflection,  to  permit  this,  which  was  so  obvi 
ously  the  true  policy,  to  prevail.  For  this  Mr.  Manning, 
the  chairman  of  the  delegation,  was  partly  responsible.  He 
telegraphed  Mr.  Tilden  to  know  if  he  might  yield  to  the 
pressure  for  his  renomination  which  had  been  stimulated 
by  the  publication  of  his  letter.  To  this  Mr.  Tilden  could 
make  but  one  reply,  and  unless  such  a  reply  was  desired, 
it  was  very  indiscreet  to  ask  the  question.  It  ran  as  fol 
lows  : 

"  JUNE  24,  1880. 
"  HON.  DANIEL  MANNING,  Grand  Hotel,  Cincinnati,  0. : 

"  Received  your  telegrams  and  many  others  containing 
like  information.  My  action  was  well  considered  and  is 
irrevocable.  No  friends  must  be  allowed  to  cast  a  doubt 
on  my  motives  or  my  sincerity. 

ft  f~r\  ?j 

This,  of  course,  rendered  his  renomination  impossible. 
The  convention  finally,  and  after  much  confusion,  united 
upon  Major-General  Hancock,  who,  in  point  of  fact,  was 
the  preference  or  first  choice  of  but  a  very  small  proportion 
of  the  convention. 

The  committee  appointed  to  wait  upon  and  notify  the 
candidates  of  their  nomination  called  upon  Mr.  Tilden  to 
present  to  him  an  engrossed  copy  of  the  resolutions  adopted 
by  the  convention.  On  this  occasion  Governor  Stevenson, 
of  Virginia,  the  chairman  of  the  committee,  read  to  him 
the  ninth,  which  ran  as  follows : 

"  Itesolved,  That  the  resolution  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden  not 
again  to  be  a  candidate  for  the  exalted  position  to  which 
he  was  elected  by  a  majority  of  his  countrymen,  and  from 
which  he  was  excluded  by  the  leaders  of  the  Republican 
party,  is  received  by  the  Democracy  of  the  United  States 
with  deep  sensibility,  and  they  declare  their  confidence  in 
his  wisdom,  patriotism,  and  integrity  unshaken  by  the 
assaults  of  the  common  enemy;  and  we  further  assure 


TILDE 'N  AND    THE    CONVENTION  273 

him  he  is  followed  into  the  retirement  he  has  chosen  for 
himself  by  the  sympathy  and  respect  of  his  fellow-country 
men,  who  regard  him  as  one  who,  by  elevating  the  standard 
of  public  morality,  and  adorning  and  purifying  the  public 
service,  merits  the  lasting  gratitude  of  his  country  and  his 
party." 

Then,  handing  a  copy  of  the  resolution  to  Mr.  Tilden, 
Governor  Stevenson  continued : 

:r  That  resolution  embodies  the  true  sentiment  toward 
you  of  every  Democrat  in  our  land.  Take  it,  as  a  memo 
rial  of  their  affectionate  regard  and  confidence  in  your  wis 
dom,  statesmanship,  and  unsullied  purity.  In  conclusion, 
I  beg  you,  Mr.  Tilden,  to  accept  the  best  wishes  of  the 
committee  and  of  myself  for  your  future  happiness  and 
prosperity." 

Mr.  Tilden's  reply  was  neither  elaborate  nor  effusive. 
He  could  not  have  added  a  word  that  would  have  made  it 
a  more  significant  commentary  upon  the  blunder  of  the 
convention.  He  said : 

"  MR.  STEVENSON,  PRESIDENT  or  THE  DEMOCRATIC 
NATIONAL  CONVENTION  :  I  thank  you  for  the  kind  terms  in 
which  you  have  expressed  the  communication  you  make  to 
me.  A  solution  which  enables  the  Democratic  party  of  the 
United  States  to  vindicate  effectively  the  right  of  the  people 
to  choose  their  chief  magistrate,  —  a  right  violated  in  1876, 
—  and,  at  the  same  time,  relieves  me  from  the  burden  of  a 
canvass  and  four  years  of  administration,  is  most  agreeable 
to  me.  My  sincere  good  wishes  and  cordial  cooperation  as 
a  private  citizen  attend  the  illustrious  soldier  whom  the 
Democracy  have  designated  as  their  standard-bearer  in  the 
presidential  canvass.  I  congratulate  you  on  the  favorable 
prospects  with  which  that  canvass  has  been  commenced, 
and  the  promise  it  affords  of  complete  and  final  success." 

In  the  winter  of  1881  Mr.  Tilden  received  from  Mr. 
Hammers,  of  Gettysburg,  a  letter  announcing  the  decease 
of  the  Hon.  Isaac  Hereter,  a  member  of  the  State  Senate 

VOL.  II.— 18 


274  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

of  Pennsylvania,  and  a  devoted  friend  of  Mr.  Tilden, 
whom,  during  the  presidential  canvass,  Mr.  Hammers  rep 
resents  as  going  with  him  from  house  to  house  in  the 
mountain  district  canvassing  for  the  Tilden  and  Hendricks 
ticket,  and  bursting  into  tears  when  the  decision  of  the 
Electoral  Commission  reached  him. 

To  this  touching  letter  Mr.  Tilden  sent  the  following 
reply : 

MR.    TILDEN   TO    MR.    S.    S.    W.    HAMMERS. 

"  GRAYSTONE,  June  23,  1882. 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  It  was  not  because  I  was  not  interested  by 
your  letter  advising  me  of  the  decease  of  your  lamented 
friend,  the  Hon.  Isaac  Hereter,  that  I  have  not  sooner 
answered  it ;  for  the  purpose  has  been  all  the  while  in  my 
mind  to  write  to  you  as  soon  as  other  more  pressing  duties 
would  permit. 

:f  The  incidents  you  relate  are  very  touching. 

"  The  cause  which  triumphed  by  the  votes  of  the  people 
in  the  great  national  contest  of  1876,  but  which  was  foully 
lost  in  the  count  of  those  votes,  was  the  cause  of  the  sons 
of  toil,  who,  on  their  farms  and  in  their  workshops,  ex 
pect  no  special  advantages  from  the  government,  and  only 
ask  that  the  sunshine  of  its  favors  may  fall  equally  upon  all. 
These  isolated  atoms  of  human  society  are  not  easily  com 
bined,  and  not  often  truly  represented;  while  the  more 
selfish,  active,  and  intriguing  classes  are  all  the  while 
wresting  the  government  from  its  true  functions,  and 
making  it  a  machine  to  enrich  the  few  at  the  expense  of 
the  many,  and  then  corrupting  the  administrative  service, 
the  legislation,  and  the  elections,  in  order  to  hold  and 
enlarge  their  unjust  advantage. 

"  The  meaning  of  the  people  in  the  election  of  1876  was 
to  restore  the  government  to  the  pure,  simple,  and  just 
system  which  the  founders  of  the  Republic  intended,  and 
which  Jefferson  exemplified  in  practice. 

"How  deeply  the  best  interests  and  the  most  sacred 
rights  of  humanity  were  involved,  I  doubt  not  your  de 
ceased  friend  realized,  when  with  you  he  went  from  '  house 
to  house '  through  the  mountains  of  Pennsylvania  during 
the  canvass,  and  when  he  wept  over  the  destruction,  by 


DEFEAT    OF   HANCOCK  275 

frauds,  perjuries,  and  the  forgery  of  electoral  votes,  of  the 
fruits  of  the  victory  he  had  helped  to  achieve. 

"With  my  best  wishes  for  your  health,  prosperity,  and 
happiness,  I  remain, 

r  Very  truly  yours, 

"S.    J.    TiLDEN." 

"S.  S.  W.  HAMMERS,  ESQ., 

"Gettysburg,  Pa." 

The  results  of  the  election  in  the  defeat  of  Hancock  and 
the  triumph  of  the  Republican  candidate  revealed  to  the 
party  the  mistake  it  had  made,  and  revived  the  clamor  for 
the  renornination  of  Mr.  Tilden  in  1884,  a  clamor  which, 
despite  the  private  and  public  protestations  of  Mr.  Tilden 
and  of  several  of  his  most  intimate  friends,  practically  ex 
cluded  the  consideration  of  any  other  candidates.  With 
the  abundant  evidence  which  from  time  to  time  reached  the 
public  from  his  seclusion  at  Graystone,  of  the  unimpaired 
mental  force  and  sagacity  of  its  proprietor,  the  zeal  of  the 
party  for  his  renomination  seemed  to  have  received  a  new 
and  accumulative  impulse  from  the  defeat  in  1880.  Con 
flicting  reports  of  the  condition  of  his  health,  adapted  to  the 
uses  of  the  respective  parties,  were  eagerly  sought  for  and 
published,  and  he  continued  to  be  treated  by  the  Republi 
can  press  as  the  only  formidable  candidate  of  his  party  up 
to  the  very  day  that  another  candidate  was  renominated. 

Reports  were  put  in  circulation  by  the  Republican  press, 
in  1881,  that  Mr.  Tilden  proposed  to  be  a  candidate  for 
governor  again  the  following  year.  Ex-Governor  Seymour, 
who  had  not  been  able  to  contemplate  with  entire  satisfac 
tion  the  precedence  which  the  party  had  been  giving  of  late 
years  to  Mr.  Tilden,  seems  to  have  been  not  indisposed  to 
countenance  these  rumors.  In  reply  to  a  letter  from 
Seymour,  Mr.  Tilden  sent  the  following  reply  : 

"GRAYSTONE,  Oct.  3,  1881. 

"  MY  DEAR  SIR  :  I  have  received  your  letter  stating  you 
intended  to  call  on  me,  and  your  inability  to  do  so. 


276  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"  I  should  have  written  to  you  earlier,  except  for  an  ill 
ness  and  the  pressure  of  claims  upon  my  attention  during 
my  convalescence. 

"  It  would  have  been  agreeable  to  me  to  have  seen  you 
and  to  have  treated  you  with  that  frankness  and  courtesy 
you  have  always  experienced  from  me. 

"In  respect  to  your  assurance  that  you  would  not  be 
a  candidate  for  nomination,  if  your  nomination  'would 
be  disagreeable  to  me,  and  be  discountenanced  by  me,' 
I  have  to  say  that  I  cannot  assume  any  such  position.  I 
have  neither  the  right  nor  the  wish  to  exclude  you  from 
a  legitimate  and  honorable  competition  for  any  public 
trust.  My  practice,  when  I  was  at  the  head  of  the  party 
organization,  was  not  to  become  a  partisan  of  any  par 
ticular  candidate,  but  to  confine  myself  to  such  advis 
ory  suggestions  as  might  seem  fit  and  useful  during  the 
deliberations  of  the  convention ;  to  defer  largely  to  the 
judgment  of  the  best  men  of  the  counties  found  at  the  con 
vention,  in  view  of  the  immediate  action  on  the  complex 
considerations  which  enter  into  the  formation  of  a  collec 
tive  ticket.  I  need  not  say  that  I  have  not  undertaken 
any  such  function  on  the  present  occasion,  and  have  not 
possessed  myself  of  the  information  to  make  me  competent 
to  such  a  work.  I  assume  that  you  have  not  given  credit 
to  the  idle  fictions  of  Kepublican  and  other  newspapers, 
which  ascribe  to  me  a  desire  to  control  the  nominations  and 
canvass  for  the  present  year,  with  a  view  to  becoming  a 
candidate  for  governor  next  year.  The  truth  is  I  ran  for 
governor  in  1874,  simply  for  the  purpose  of  sustaining  the 
reform  movement  to  which  I  had  given  the  three  preceding 
years;  and  I  should  not  have  continued  in  the  office  for  a 
second  term  in  any  possible  event,  nor  would  I  now  enter 
tain  the  idea  of  returning  to  it,  even  if  I  flattered  myself 
that  I  would  receive  a  unanimous  vote  of  the  people. 

"  All  I  desire  for  the  Democratic  party  in  the  coming 
canvass  is  that  it  shall  make  the  best  possible  choice  of 
candidates,  and  do  everything  to  advance  the  principles 
of  administration,  to  which  I  have  devoted  so  many  efforts 
and  sacrifices.  With  cordial  good  wishes, 

"Very  truly  yours, 

rS.  J.  TILDEN." 


CLEVELAND    ELECTED    GOVERNOR  277 

Faithful  to  the  declaration  made  in  this  letter,  Mr. 
Tilden  took  no  active  part  in  the  election  of  the  candidate 
for  governor,  though  his  preference  may  have  been  inferred 
by  his  friends  who  were  in  control  of  the  nominating  con 
vention,  from  the  fact  that  one  of  his  nephews,  and  his 
namesake,  who  was  a  delegate  from  Columbia  county,  at  a 
critical  moment  voted  for  Grover  Cleveland.  This  vote, 
supposed  to  reflect  Mr.  Tilden's  preferences,  no  doubt 
exerted  a  controlling  influence  over  the  convention  and 
secured  Mr.  Cleveland's  nomination.  A  few  days  before 
the  election  Mr.  Tilden  addressed  to  Mr.  Manning,  the 
chairman  of  the  State  committee,  the  following  letter  com 
mending  the  nomination : 

"GRAYSTONE,  Oct.  20,  1882. 

w  MY  DEAR  SIR  :  I  have  received  your  letter  and  in  reply 
I  hasten  to  say  that,  in  my  opinion,  the  excellent  ticket 
nominated  at  Syracuse  is  auspicious  of  a  reform  adminis 
tration  in  the  executive  government  of  the  State.  The 
large  classes  of  independent  voters  who,  during  my  ad 
ministration  as  governor,  honored  me  with  their  support 
included  many  citizens  who  were  then  first  attracted  to 
take  an  interest  in  public  affairs ;  many  others  who  had 
not  been  before  classified  as  partisans,  and  a  large  num 
ber  who  broke  away  from  their  party  ties  and  gave  their 
adhesion  to  a  system  of  politics  which  promised  to  purify 
administration  and  to  elevate  the  standard  of  official 
morality.  They  were  numerous  enough  and  powerful 
enough  to  hold  the  balance  of  power  in  every  successive 
contest.  They  can  now  much  more  easily  determine  the 
result  in  the  approaching  election.  To  all  these  classes, 
as  well  as  to  all  others  who  are  in  general  accord  with  me 
as  to  the  principles  on  which  the  State  ought  to  be  gov 
erned,  I  cordially  commend  the  support  of  Grover  Cleve 
land  and  his  associate  candidates. 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"  S.  J.  TILDEN. 

"To  DANIEL  MANNING,  ESQ." 

The  following  letter  to  Mr.  Henry  Adams,  in  acknowl 
edgment  of  his  admirable  biographies  of  John  Eandolph 


278  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDE  N 

and  of  Albert  Gallatin,  betrays  the  change  of  interest  and 
occupation  to  which  Mr.  Tilden  was  gradually  habituating 
himself  in  his  new  home : 

"GRAYSTONE,  Jan.  12,  1883. 

"  DEAR  Mr.  ADAMS  :  I  was  lately  reading  your  very  in 
teresting  book  concerning  John  Randolph,  and  it  suggested 
a  desire  to  look  over  your  work  on  the  '  New  England  Fed 
eralists.'  I  sent  to  my  library  in  the  city  for  that  book. 
When  I  came  to  look  at  it,  I  noticed  that  it  was  a  presen 
tation  copy  sent  by  you  to  me. 

"  I  have  no  recollection  of  ever  before  having  seen  that 
entry,  or  of  having  ever  acknowledged  your  courtesy. 

"  I  write  now  to  repair  the  seeming  want  of  attention, 
and  to  beg  you  to  accept  my  thanks,  not  only  for  the  vol 
ume  you  were  so  kind  as  to  send  me,  but  for  the  great 
services  which  you  have  rendered  to  the  history  of  our 
country. 

"  I  consider  your  '  Life  of  Albert  Gallatin  '  as  the  most 
valuable  contribution  which  has  been  made  to  this  depart 
ment  of  our  literature.  I  agree  with  your  very  high  esti 
mate  of  Mr.  Gallatin  as  a  practical  statesman. 

"  There  is  a  story  told  of  Mr.  Choate.  It  is  that  at  a 
dinner  party  in  Pennsylvania,  where  his  wit  was  ruffled 
by  a  competition  in  the  exhibition  of  great  men,  he  gave  as 
a  toast,  '  The  two  really  great  men  of  Pennsylvania  :  Albert 
Gallatin,  of  Geneva,  and  Benjamin  Franklin,  of  Boston.' 

"John  Randolph's  epigrams,  which  were  famous  in  their 
day,  were  as  laboriously  wrought  as  the  impromptus  of 
Sheridan  are  shown  by  Moore  to  have  been. 

"  Mr.  Van  Buren  told  me  that  Randolph  said  to  him, 
1  When  I  get  a  good  thing,  I  boil  it  down,  and  boil  it  down, 
and  boil  it  down,  until  I  can  put  it  into  the  apple  of  my 
eye,  and  then  I  lay  it  away  for  use.' 

"  I  hope  your  father's  health  has  improved. 

"  With  my  best  wishes  for  the  health,  prosperity,  and 
happiness  of  yourself  and  the  other  members  of  your 
father's  family,  I  remain, 

"Very  truly  yours, 

"S.  J.  TILDEN. 
"HENRY  ADAMS,  ESQ., 

"Boston,  Mass." 


CLEVELAND    ELECTED    GOVERNOR  279 

As  the  time  approached  for  the  nomination  of  a  candi 
date  for  President  in  1884  the  purpose  of  his  party  to 
renominate  Mr.  Tilden  threatened  to  be  irresistible.  He 
alone  of  all  the  prominent  statesmen  of  his  party  had 
seemed,  day  by  day,  to  expand  and  to  assume  continually 
enlarging  proportions  in  popular  estimation.  The  convic 
tion  that  he  alone  could  assure  the  party's  success  made 
them  deaf  to  the  protestations  of  Tilden  or  of  his  friends 
that  he  would  not  accept  the  nomination. 

This  feeling  was  instinctive  and  universal.  It  may  have 
been  in  part  founded  on  the  knowledge  of  the  special  de 
votion  to  him  of  the  working-classes,  to  whose  interests  he 
had  been  faithful  for  fifty  years  ;  the  confidence  of  the  busi 
ness  men,  who  trusted,  to  his  wise  and  safe  policy;  and  to 
the  peculiar  support  which  the  adopted  citizens  of  German 
origin  had  uniformly  given  to  him,  including  large  numbers 
of  Republicans  as  well  as  Democrats. 

But  a  still  more  potential  influence  was  the  fact,  at 
length  conceded  substantially  by  all  parties,  that  he  had 
been  elected  in  1876,  but  fraudulently  deprived  of  the  office. 

Each  one  of  the  four  millions  of  voters  who  had  given 
him  their  suffrages  felt  a  sense  of  personal  injury,  and  an 
intense  desire  to  punish  and  to  rectify  that  wrong.  This 
feeling  converted  each  man  from  being  a  comparatively 
indifferent  voter,  into  a  proselyting  canvasser. 

In  behalf  of  the  man  who  had  been  the  victim  of  a  great 
public  crime,  there  was  also  a  widespread  disposition 
among  many  Republicans  who  loved  fair  play,  to  give  their 
votes  on  the  first  opportunity  in  such  a  manner  as  to  redress 
the  wrong  of  1876.  Instances  of  this  kind  came  within  the 
knowledge  of  almost  every  Democratic  voter,  and  the  pur 
pose  was  communicated,  in  many  cases,  to  Mr.  Tilden  and 
to  his  friends.  Accessions  from  this  cause  were  believed 
to  be  very  numerous,  and  were  estimated  to  count  by 
many  thousands.1 


important  evidence  on  this    subject,    the   reader   is   referred  to 
Appendix  B. 


280  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

So  strong  was  the  popular  sentiment  in  favor  of  Mr. 
Tilden's  renomination  in  his  own  State  that  when  the  time 
arrived  for  the  selection  of  delegates  to  the  State  conven 
tion  which  was  to  choose  the  delegation  to  the  national 
convention  those  Democrats  who  were  hostile  to  Governor 
Cleveland's  nomination  to  the  presidency,  and  who  knew 
that  Mr.  Tilden  did  not  mean  to  accept  a  nomination, 
began  to  intrigue  for  the  election  of  delegates  whose 
first  choice  was  understood  to  be  Mr.  Tilden,  but  were 
secretly  opposed  to  Cleveland.  Several  delegates  had  been 
elected  in  this  shape,  when  Mr.  Manning  called  upon  me 
one  day  early  in  June,  1884,  and  expressed  the  wish  that  I 
would  accompany  him  to  Graystone.  After  briefly  refer 
ring  to  the  political  situation,  he  said  that  on  the  Sunday 
previous  he  had  called  upon  Governor  Cleveland,  laid  the 
whole  case  before  him ;  pressed  upon  his  attention  the 
necessity  of  doing  something  at  once,  to  prevent  the  friends 
of  Mr.  Tilden  getting  heedlessly  pledged  to  other  candidates 
as  their  second  choice,  a  danger  which  was  imminent  so 
long  as  a  hope  of  Mr.  Tilden's  yielding  to  the  wishes  of  the 
party  was  indulged ;  and  finally,  that  the  only  way  of  defeat 
ing  such  a  scheme  was  for  Mr.  Tilden  to  signify,  before  the 
election  of  any  more  delegates,  most  of  whom  were  to  be 
chosen  within  the  next  eight  or  ten  days,  that  he  would 
not  be  a  candidate.  Mr.  Manning  then  went  on  to  say  that 
Governor  Cleveland  promptly  expressed  the  desire  that  Mr. 
Manning  would  go  down  to  Graystone,  represent  the  situa 
tion  to  Mr.  Tilden,  and  consider  himself  authorized  to  give 
Mr.  Tilden  any  assurances  he  required  in  regard  to  the 
naming  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  cabinet  should  he  be  elected,  and 
in  regard  to  the  conduct  of  his  administration  upon  the 
lines  of  reform  which  had  been  traced  by  Mr.  Tilden  dur 
ing  and  since  his  election  as  governor.  Mr.  Manning  said 
his  object  in  coming  to  me  was  to  ask  me  to  accom 
pany  him  to  Graystone  and  assist  him  in  persuading  Mr. 
Tilden — if  persuasion  should  be  necessary  —  to  no  longer 


MANNING'S   MESSAGE    TO    TILDEN  281 

delay  a  formal  announcement  of  his  intentions,  already 
well  known  to  Mr.  Manning  and  myself,  not  to  accept  a 
renomination. 

I  said  that  I  approved  entirely  of  an  early  publication  by 
Mr.  Tilden  of  his  intention  not  to  accept  a  renomination ; 
that  some  two  weeks  previous  I  had  written  him  at  length, 
urging  upon  him  the  inconveniences  of  permitting  the  dele 
gates  to  be  elected  to  the  nominating  convention  in  the 
expectation  of  making  him  their  candidate ;  that  such  a 
letter  had  already  been  written,  but  the  utterance  of  it  had 
been  delayed,  partly  out  of  deference  to  the  wishes  of 
friends  in  Washington,  and  partly  for  what  seemed  the  more 
obvious  and  appropriate  occasion  for  such  a  communication, 
—  the  meeting  of  the  State  convention  that  was  to  choose 
the  delegates  to  the  national  convention. 

I  accompanied  Mr.  Manning  to  Gray  stone,  where  he 
stated  his  errand  to  Mr.  Tilden. 

Mr.  Tilden  hesitated  a  little,  partly,  perhaps,  from  a 
natural  reluctance  to  pursue  a  course  which  might  be  con 
strued  into  an  unbecoming  interference  in  behalf  of  a  par 
ticular  candidate,  partly  from  delicacy  about  declining  a 
nomination  before  the  State  convention  had  furnished  him 
a  suitable  pretext  for  such  a  step,  and  partly  from  a  pro 
found  sense  of  the  risk  the  people  would  run  in  selecting  a 
man  of  such  limited  administrative  experience  to  conduct 
the  government  of  sixty  millions  of  people.  He  finally, 
however,  gave  Mr.  Manning  to  understand  that  the  State 
committee  would  probably  hear  from  him  in  a  day  or  two. 
A  letter  of  declension  was  sent  to  Mr.  Manning  the  follow 
ing  day,  and  appeared  in  the  morning  papers  of  the  12th 
of  June,  1884. 

After  referring  briefly  to  the  terms  in  which  he  declined 
a  renomination  in  1880,  he  said  that  nothing  had  occurred 
in  the  four  years  which  had  since  elapsed  to  weaken, 
but  everything  to  strengthen,  the  considerations  which 
then  induced  him  to  withdraw  from  public  life ;  that  the 


282  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

occasion  now  to  consider  the  question  was  an  event  for 
which  he  had  no  responsibility ;  that  he  had  never  accepted 
official  service  except  for  a  brief  period,  for  a  special  pur 
pose,  and  only  when  the  occasion  seemed  to  require  of  him 
that  sacrifice  of  his  personal  preferences  for  the  public  wel 
fare  ;  that  he  accepted  the  nomination  for  the  presidency  in 
1876  because  of  the  general  conviction  that  his  candidacy 
would  best  present  the  issue  of  reform  which  the  Demo 
cratic  majority  of  the  people  desired  to  have  worked  out  in 
the  federal  government  as  it  had  been  in  that  of  the  State  of 
New  York ;  that  the  canvass  he  was  desired  to  undertake 
would  embrace  a  period  of  nearly  five  years,  the  burdens 
of  which  admitted  of  no  illusions.  The  close  of  his  letter 
was  conspicuous  for  its  eloquence,  pathos,  and  dignity. 

"At  the  present  time  the  considerations  which  induced 
my  action  in  1880  have  become  imperative.  I  ought  not  to 
assume  a  task  which  I  have  not  the  physical  strength  to 
carry  through.  To  reform  the  administration  of  the  fed 
eral  government,  to  realize  my  own  ideal,  and  to  fulfil 
the  just  expectations  of  the  people,  would  indeed  warrant, 
as  they  could  alone  compensate,  the  sacrifices  which  the 
undertaking  would  involve.  But,  in  my  condition  of  ad 
vancing  years  and  declining  strength,  I  feel  no  assurance 
of  my  ability  to  accomplish  those  objects.  I  am,  therefore, 
constrained  to  say,  definitely,  that  I  cannot  now  assume  the 
labors  of  an  administration  or  of  a  canvass. 

"Undervaluing  in  nowise  that  best  gift  of  heaven,  the 
occasion  and  the  power  sometimes  bestowed  upon  a  mere 
individual  to  communicate  an  impulse  for  good ;  grateful 
beyond  all  words  to  my  fellow-countrymen  who  would 
assign  such  a  beneficent  function  to  me,  —  I  am  consoled  by 
the  reflection  that  neither  the  Democratic  party,  nor  the 
Republic  for  whose  future  that  party  is  the  best  guarantee, 
is  now  or  ever  can  be  dependent  upon  any  one  man  for 
their  successful  progress  in  the  path  of  a  noble  destiny. 

"  Having  given  to  their  welfare  whatever  of  health  and 
strength  I  possessed,  or  could  borrow  from  the  future,  and 
having  reached  the  term  of  my  capacity  for  such  labors  as 
their  welfare  now  demands,  I  but  submit  to  the  will  of 
God  in  deeming  my  public  career  forever  closed." 


DECLINES   A    RENOMINATION  283 

This  letter  was  like  a  rainbow  set  in  the  political  horizon, 
the  harbinger  of  comparative  peace  for  Mr.  Tilden.  It 
served  nobody's  purpose  longer  to  assail  him,  and  those  who 
had  assailed  him  most  virulently  seemed  disposed  to  profit 
by  the  appearance  of  this  letter  to  do  what  they  could,  and 
as  fast  as  possible,  to  assist  the  public  in  forgetting  their 
past  injustice.  Even  the  "New  York  Times,"  which  for 
the  previous  eight  years  had  blinded  itself  to  all  of  Mr. 
Tilden's  virtues  in  its  intemperate  search  for  pretexts  to 
revile  him,  resumed  at  once  the  tone  of  decorous  respect 
to  which  it  had  been  habituated  while  laboring  with  Mr. 
Tilden  some  dozen  years  before  for  municipal  reform. 

Said  the  "  Times  "  of  the  12th,  in  which  Mr.  Tilden's  letter 
appeared : 

"  The  vital  point  in  what  Mr.  Tilden  writes  is  his  asser 
tion  that  he  cannot  now  '  assume  the  labors  of  an  adminis 
tration  or  of  a  canvass/ 

"  The  assertion  is  made,  it  is  fair  to  say,  in  full  knowl 
edge  of  the  fact  that  in  many  States  of  the  Union  the 
Democratic  party,  without  preliminary  inquiry  as  to  Mr. 
Tilden's  wishes  or  Mr.  Tilden's  strength,  had  spoken  almost 
without  a  dissenting  voice  in  favor  of  his  nomination  at 
Chicago.  He  puts  away  a  presidential  nomination  he 
might  have  had,  an  act  which  has  few  precedents  in  the 
history  of  parties  in  this  country.  That  act  is  extremely 
creditable  to  the  good  sense  and  to  the  clear  perception  of 
Mr.  Tilden.  He  is  the  best  judge  of  his  own  strength,  and 
his  judgment  is  blinded  by  none  of  those  dazzling  illusions 
to  which  so  many  men  are  subject  whenever  and  as  often 
as  the  presidency  comes  even  remotely  within  the  range  of 
their  vision.  Nor  has  his  decision  been  in  any  way  in 
fluenced  by  recent  Republican  action,  for  it  is  now  more 
than  a  year  since  Mr.  Tilden  gave  an  intimation,  in  a  quar 
ter  which  left  no  doubt  or  question  as  to  his  entire  earnest 
ness,  of  his  fixed  purpose  to  adhere  to  the  conclusion  stated 
in  his  letter  of  June  18,  1880. 

"It  would  be  but  a  slight  recognition  of  Mr.  Tilden's 
motives  and  of  the  circumstances  under  which  his  letter  is 
written  to  say  that  his  act  is  an  unselfish  one.  It  is  more 


284  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

than  unselfish.  In  the  present  divided  condition  of  the 
Republican  party  it  is  an  act  of  great  moment  and 
promise." 

It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  the  extraordinary  hold  which 
Tilden's  name  had  upon  his  party  that  but  for  the  belief 
that  the  time  chosen  for  the  publication  of  his  letter  sig 
nified  a  desire  for  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Cleveland,  the 
chances  were  even  that  he  would  have  been  nominated  in 
spite  of  it.  i  Of  twenty-two  States  which  held  their  conven 
tions  before  the  publication  of  the  letter,  twenty  either 
instructed  their  delegates  to  vote  for  him,  or  by  resolution 
declared  him  to  be  their  preference,  or  appointed  delegates 
known  to  favor  his  nomination.  One  of  the  remaining  two, 
although  nominally  favoring  a  State  candidate  in  the  belief 
that  Mr.  Tilden  did  not  mean  to  run,  was  really  favorable 
to  his  nomination.  Of  fourteen  States  which  held  their 
conventions  after  the  appearance  of  the  letter,  five  either 
declared  for  his  nomination  or  expressed  their  continued 
preference  for  him,  while  nine  others  appointed  delegates, 
of  whom  he  was  their  first  choice. 

New  York  State  held  its  convention  on  the  18th  of  June, 
six  days  after  the  publication  of  his  letter,  and  after  dele 
gates  had  been  appointed  from  all  the  counties  favorable 
to  his  renomination.  The  remaining  one  of  the  thirty-eight 
States  then  composing  the  Union,  and  which  held  its  con 
vention  on  the  17th  of  June,  accepted  Mr.  Tilden's  letter 
as  final,  and  appointed  delegates  favorable  to  its  State 
candidates.2 

I  think  Mr.  Tilden  resisted  the  importunities  of  his 
friends  as  much  through  fear  of  the  consequences  of  a 
canvass  to  himself  as  to  the  party.  His  health  would  have 

1  Shortly  after  Mr.  Cleveland's  nomination  I  was  assured  by  one  of  the 
more  prominent  delegates  to  the  national  convention  from  a  Southern 
State  that  but  for  the  impression  prevailing  in  the  convention  that  Mr. 
Cleveland  was  Mr.  Tilden's  choice  for  the  nomination,  he  would  not  have 
"received  a  single  vote.  2  Appendix  B. 


CLEVELAND    NOMINATED    FOR    PRESIDENT      285 

become  the  controlling  issue  in  the  contest.  His  feebleness 
would  have  been  exaggerated  by  his  opponents.  This 
would  have  compelled  his  appearance  in  public  places,  and 
his  exposure  at  inconvenient  times  and  to  imprudent 
fatigues,  the  results  of  which  might  have  left  the  party  in 
the  midst  of  the  battle  without  a  leader.  Only  a  few 
months  after  the  election  he  told  me  that  he  thought  he 
should  live  about  two  years  longer.  He  overestimated 
his  longevity  by  a  few  months. 

It  was  therefore  from  no  selfish  consideration,  from  no 
lack  of  deference  for  the  judgment  of  others,  from  no  mis 
trust  of  his  popularity  in  the  country,  that  he  did  not  allow 
himself  to  be  moved  by  the  importunities  of  his  partisans. 
He  knew  better  than  any  one  else  the  risks  that  would  be 
incurred  by  his  renomination,  and  he  was  too  wise  a  man 
to  assume  that  his  party  was  lacking  in  men  abundantly 
competent  to  lead  it  with  success. 

Mr.  Elaine  had  already  been  nominated  for  the  presi 
dency  by  the  Republican  party,  and  Governor  Cleveland  was 
finally  nominated  by  the  Democratic  party,  and  elected. 

The  convention  which  nominated  Mr.  Cleveland  signal 
ized  its  deliberations  by  inserting  in  its  declaration  of 
principles  the  following  tribute  to  its  retired  leader : 

"  With  profound  regret  we  have  been  apprised  by  the 
venerable  statesman,  through  whose  person  was  struck  that 
blow  at  the  vital  principle  of  republics  (acquiescence  in  the 
will  of  the  majority),  that  he  cannot  permit  us  again  to 
place  in  his  hands  the  leadership  of  the  Democratic  hosts, 
for  the  reason  that  the  achievement  of  reform  in  the 
administration  of  the  federal  government  is  an  undertak 
ing  now  too  heavy  for  his  age  and  failing  strength.  Re 
joicing  that  his  life  has  been  prolonged  until  the  general 
judgment  of  our  fellow-countrymen  is  united  in  the  wish 
that  that  wrong  were  righted  in  his  person,  for  the  Democ 
racy  of  the  United  States,  we  offer  to  him  in  his  with 
drawal  from  public  cares  not  only  our  respectful  sympathy 
and  esteem,  but  also  that  best  homage  of  freemen,  the 
pledge  of  our  devotion  to  the  principles  and  the  cause  now 


286  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL   J.    TILDE N 

inseparable  in  the  history  of  this  Kepublic  from  the  labors 
and  the  name  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden." 

The  convention  also  unanimously  adopted  the  following 
resolutions : 

"  Resolved,  That  this  convention  has  read  with  profound 
regret  and  intense  admiration  the  statesmanlike  and  patriotic 
letter  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden  expressing  the  overpowering  and 
providential  necessity  which  constrains  him  to  decline  a 
nomination  for  the  highest  office  in  the  gift  of  the  American 
people. 

"Resolved,  That,  though  fraud,  force,  and  violence 
deprived  Samuel  J.  Tilden  and  Thomas  A.  Hendricks  of 
the  offices  conferred  upon  them  by  the  Democratic  party 
of  the  nation  in  1876,  they  yet  live,  and  ever  will,  first  in 
the  hearts  of  the  Democracy  of  the  country. 

"  Resolved,  That  this  convention  expresses  a  nation's 
regret  that  this  same  lofty  patriotism  and  splendid  execu 
tive  and  administrative  ability  which  cleansed  and  purified 
the  city  and  State  governments  of  the  great  Empire  State 
cannot  now  be  turned  upon  the  Augean  stable  of  national 
fraud  and  corruption  so  long  and  successfully  maintained 
by  the  Republican  party  at  the  national  capital. 

"  Resolved,  That  copies  of  these  resolutions  be  suitably 
engrossed,  and  that  the  chairman  of  the  convention  appoint 
a  committee  whose  duty  it  shall  be,  in  the  name  of  the  con 
vention,  to  forward  or  present  the  same  to  the  Hon.  Samuel 
J.  Tilden  and  the  Hon.  Thomas  A.  Hendricks." 

The  chairman  of  the  convention  in  compliance  with  its 
instructions  appointed  a  committee  consisting  of  one  dele 
gate  from  each  State  to  wait  upon  Mr.  Tilden  and  present 
him  with  an  engrossed  copy  of  these  resolutions. 

The  committee  assembled  in  New  York  on  the  third  day 
of  September,  whence  they  were  conveyed  to  Yonkers  in 
Mr.  Tilden's  steam-yacht,  the  "  Viking,"  which  had  been 
placed  at  their  disposal. 

The  resolutions  were  communicated  to  Mr.  Tilden,  with 
a  few  appropriate  remarks  by  the  Hon.  R.  R.  Henry,  of 
Mississippi,  chairman  of  the  committee.  Mr.  Tilden 


REPLY    TO    THE   NATIONAL    CONVENTION       287 

briefly  expressed  his  thanks,  and  said  that  the  state  of  his 
health  compelled  him  to  ask  of  the  committee  the  indul 
gence  of  a  few  days  for  a  more  formal  reply. 

On  the  6th  of  October  he  addressed  the  committee  a 
letter  the  burden  of  which  was  the  characteristics  by  which 
the  Democratic  party  had  been  distinguished  from  the 
Republican  party  from  their  foundations  respectively.  Of 
the  latter  his  view  is  substantially  presented  in  the  follow 
ing  paragraphs  : 

"  The  Democratic  party  had  its  origin  in  the  efforts  of  the 
more  advanced  patriots  of  the  Revolution  to  resist  the  per 
version  of  our  government  from  the  ideal  contemplated  by 
the  people.  Among  its  conspicuous  founders  are  Benjamin 
Franklin  and  Thomas  Jefferson,  Samuel  Adams  and  John 
Hancock,  of  Massachusetts ;  George  Clinton  and  Robert  R. 
Livingston,  of  New  York ;  and  George  Wythe  and  James 
Madison,  of  Virginia.  From  the  election  of  Mr.  Jefferson 
as  President  in  1800,  for  sixty  years  the  Democratic  party 
mainly  directed  our  national  policy.  It  extended  the 
boundaries  of  the  Republic,  and  laid  the  foundations  of 
all  our  national  greatness,  while  it  preserved  the  limitations 
imposed  by  the  Constitution  and  maintained  a  simple  and 
pure  system  of  domestic  administration. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  the  Republican  party  has  always 
been  dominated  by  principles  which  favor  legislation  for 
the  benefit  of  particular  classes  at  the  expense  of  the  body 
of  the  people.  It  has  become  deeply  tainted  with  the 
abuses  which  naturally  grow  up  during  a  long  possession 
of  unchecked  power,  especially  in  a  period  of  civil  war 
and  false  finance.  The  patriotic  and  virtuous  elements  in  it 
are  now  unable  to  emancipate  it  from  the  sway  of  selfish 
interests  which  subordinate  public  duty  to  personal  gain. 
The  most  hopeful  of  the  best  citizens  it  contains,  despair  of 
its  amendment  except  through  its  temporary  expulsion 
from  power. 

"  It  has  been  boastingly  asserted  by  a  modern  Massachu 
setts  statesman,  struggling  to  reconcile  himself  and  his 
followers  to  their  presidential  candidate,  that  the  Republi 
can  party  contains  a  disproportionate  share  of  the  wealth, 
the  culture,  and  the  intelligence  of  the  country.  The 


288  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

unprincipled  Grafton,  when  taunted  by  James  the  Second 
with  his  personal  want  of  conscience,  answered,  '  That  is 
true,  but  I  belong  to  a  party  that  has  a  great  deal  of  con 
science.9 

"  Such  reasoners  forget  that  the  same  claim  has  been  made 
in  all  ages  and  countries  by  the  defenders  of  old  wrongs 
against  new  reforms.  It  was  alleged  by  the  Tories  of  the 
American  Kevolution  against  the  Patriots  of  that  day.  It 
was  repeated  against  Jefferson  and  afterwards  against  Jack 
son.  It  is  alleged  by  the  Conservatives  against  those  who, 
in  England,  are  now  endeavoring  to  enlarge  the  popular 
suffrage . 

"  All  history  shows  that  reforms  in  government  must  not 
be  expected  from  those  who  sit  serenely  on  the  social 
mountain-tops  enjoying  the  benefits  of  the  existing  order  of 
things.  Even  the  Divine  Author  of  our  religion  found  his 
followers,  not  among  the  self-complacent  Pharisees,  but 
among  lowly  minded  fishermen."1 

Of  all  American  statesmen  who  have  risen  to  eminence 
Mr.  Tilden  was  probably  the  least  given  to  sarcastic  or  per 
sonally  offensive  allusions  of  any  kind  to  a  political  oppo 
nent.  I  am  not  aware  that  in  all  his  long  public  life  he  ever 
had  an  unpleasant  personal  controversy  about  any  words 
that  fell  from  his  lips  or  pen.  No  one  knew  better  than  he, 
nor  acted  more  uniformly  upon  the  knowledge,  that  "whoso 
keepeth  his  mouth  and  his  tongue,  keepeth  his  soul  from 
troubles."  He  would  not,  therefore,  have  made  the  reflec 
tions  upon  some  of  the  unfortunate  events  in  the  congres 
sional  career  of  the  Kepublican  candidate  which  is  disguised 
in  this  paragraph  had  not  Mr.  Elaine  stimulated  the  mali 
cious  persecutions  with  which  the  administration  had  pur 
sued  him  so  relentlessly  from  the  dawn  to  the  close  of  his 
candidature  for  the  presidency,  and  merely,  as  Mr.  Tilden 
believed,  because  Mr.  Elaine  regarded  him  as  his  most 
formidable  rival. 

1  "  Writings  and  Speeches,"  Vol.  II.  p.  533. 


CHAPTER  IX 

Tilden's  relations  to  the  new  President  —  Senator  Garland  a  suitor  —  Let 
ters  to  Manning  —  Tilden's  and  Jefferson's  views  of  civil  service  — Harbor 
defences  —  Letter  to  Carlisle  —  Tilden's  friends  proscribed  at  Wash 
ington  —  Letter  to  Watterson  —  George  W.  Julian  —  Tilden  dis 
courages  his  nephew  and  namesake  from  embarking  in  politics  — 
R.  D.  Minturn  —  Manning's  illness  and  retirement  from  the  treasury 
—  History  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  —  The  Broadway  railroad  — 
Advice  to  Governor  Hill  against  the  proposed  enlargement  of  the 
Erie  canal  —  Favors  the  bills  for  an  international  park  and  for  the 
protection  of  the  Adirondack  forests. 

MR.  CLEVELAND'S  election  was  generally  and  very  natu 
rally  regarded  as  a  continuation  of  the  Tilden  dynasty,  and 
as  a  consequence  his  supposed  influence  with  the  new 
President  was  very  extensively  solicited  by  candidates  for 
place  under  the  new  administration  from  all  parts  of  the 
country.  Among  the  earlier  applications  of  this  character 
was  one  from  Senator  Garland,  of  Arkansas,  who  desired 
the  position  of  attorney-general.  To  him  Mr.  Tilden  sent 
a  letter  evidently  intended  not  entirely  to  conceal  his  mis 
trust  that  whatever  value  Mr.  Cleveland  had  professed  to 
attach  to  his  advice  in  the  previous  June,  the  election  had 
seriously  impaired.  It  would  have  been  fortunate  for  Mr. 
Garland  had  he  followed  the  advice  which  Mr.  Tilden,  with 
so  much  delicacy,  tried  to  convey  to  him.  He  left  a  place 
where  his  manifold  limitations  escaped  observation,  for  one 
in  which  they  alone  were  conspicuous. 

TILDEN    TO    GARLAND. 

"  (Confidential.) 

"GRAYSTONE,  Dec.  5,  1884. 

"  DEAR  SENATOR  GARLAND  :  I  have  received  your  let 
ter.  I  appreciate  all  the  consideration  which  it  so  frankly 

VOL.  II.  — 19 


290  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

suggests.  Although  I  have  had  less  personal  acquaintance 
with  you  since  1868  than  I  could  have  wished,  I  have  not 
been  left  without  the  means  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  your 
acquirements  as  a  lawyer,  your  rank  as  a  Senator,  and  your 
high  personal  character. 

"I  do  not  know  to  what  extent,  or  in  what  cases,  if  any, 
I  shall  be  consulted  by  Mr.  Cleveland  in  respect  to  the 
constitution  of  his  cabinet.  I  do  not  intend  to  intrude 
upon  him  any  advice  unasked,  or  to  volunteer  any  recom 
mendations  or  requests.  If  consulted,  I  shall  not  act  as  a 
partisan  of  any  of  my  numerous  friends  who  Avould  like  to 
enter  his  cabinet,  but  shall  endeavor,  with  judicial  impartial 
ity,  to  canvass  the  personal  merits  and  other  considerations 
which  ought  to  influence  the  choice.  I  am  anxious  that  he 
should  do  the  best  thing  possible  for  the  country  and  for 
his  administration,  and  shall  desire  rather  to  help  him  in 
his  difficult  task  than  to  add  to  his  embarrassments. 

"  The  formation  of  a  cabinet  is  a  piece  of  mosaic  in  which 
each  element  may  be  affected  by  the  size,  texture,  and 
color  of  the  others  entering  into  the  combination ;  and  it  is 
impossible  to  foresee  how  much  an  individual  element  may 
be  affected  by  the  cast  of  the  whole. 

"  Impressed  as  I  am  with  your  adaptation  to  the  trust 
which  you  have  indicated  as  most  agreeable  to  you,  I 
should  feel  some  regret  at  your  leaving  the  Senate,  both  on 
account  of  the  public  interest  and  the  personal  distinction 
and  growth  which  you  would  surrender.  An  intelligent 
and  judicious  friend,  who  reads  all  the  reported  debates, 
tells  me  that  you  appear  to  great  advantage  in  the  senato 
rial  discussions.  The  role  as  the  confidential  representative 
of  the  administration  in  the  Senate  is  greater  than  any 
cabinet  office.  I  remember  how  Thomas  H.  Benton  and 
Silas  Wright  felt  on  that  subject.  While  occupying  that 
relation,  Mr.  Wright  grew  to  greater  prominence  than  any 
other  Democrat  in  the  country.  In  1844  he  was  nominated 
against  his  will  for  the  vice-presidency,  and,  I  happen  to 
know,  was  informally  offered  the  presidential  nomination 
before  it  was  conferred  on  Mr.  Polk.  His  transcendant 
hold  upon  the  country  carried  the  presidential  election  for 
the  Democracy. 

"  If  it  should  fall  to  the  lot  of  Mr.  Cleveland  to  fill  sev 
eral  appointments  in  the  Supreme  Court,  I  hope  that  he 
will  select  men,  not  only  of  eminent  legal  capacities  and  of 


RELATIONS    TO    THE    NEW   PRESIDENT         291 

pure  personal  character,  and  of  sounder  constitutional  ideas 
than  have  lately  been  found  in  that  body,  but  have  some 
thing  more  to  give  to  the  country  than  the  dregs  of  life. 
Most  of  the  great  judges  have  been  taken  young,  and  their 
character  formed  on  the  bench. 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"S.    J.    TiLDEN. 

"HoN.  A.  H.  GARLAND, 

"Washington,  D.C" 

In  point  of  fact  Mr.  Tilden  was  not  consulted  about  his 
cabinet  by  President  Cleveland  until  nearly  or  quite  every 
place  but  one  had  been  filled,  when  his  advice  about  a  sec 
retary  of  the  treasury  was  invited.  He  recommended  Mr. 
Daniel  Manning,  of  New  York.  Mr.  Manning  was  reluct 
antly  appointed  to  that  position,  but  never  welcomed  to  it 
nor  in  it. 

Whether  Mr.  Cleveland  underrated  the  value  of  Mr.  Til- 
den's  judgment,  or  overrated  his  own,  it  is  quite  certain  that 
Mr.  Manning  did  neither,  for  he  appears  to  have  rarely,  if 
ever,  taken  any  important  step  while  he  continued  in  the 
cabinet  without  trying  to  secure  Mr.  Tilden's  approval  of 
it.  Some  of  Mr.  Tilden's  letters  on  public  questions  sub 
mitted  to  him  for  his  views  have  not  yet  lost  their  value. 
On  the  1st  of  March,  and  only  three  days  before  Manning 
was  to  take  office,  Mr.  Tilden  wrote  to  him : 

TILDEN   TO    MANNING. 

"GRAYSTONE,  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  March  1,  1885. 
"  DEAR  Mr.  MANNING  :  The  first  thing  to  be  done  in  the 
treasury  is  to  ascertain  how  far  the  redemption  fund,  as  it  is 
called,  which  is  the  stock  of  gold  kept  in  reserve  to  redeem 
the  greenbacks,  has  been  impaired.  I  suspect  the  deficiency 
is  not  less  than  thirty  or  forty  millions.  The  construc 
tion  of  the  laws  adopted  by  Mr.  Sherman,  late  secretary ; 
by  Mr.  McCulloch,  present  secretary ;  and  by  Mr.  Wey- 
man,  treasurer,  —  is  that  there  is  express  legal  authority 
to  make  good,  by  sale  of  United  States  bonds,  such  defi 
ciency  as  may  be  found  from  time  to  time  to  assist  in  the 


292  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

redemption  fund.  Mr.  McCulloch  in  his  letter  to  me 
claimed  the  right  to  check  out,  in  the  discretion  of  the  sec 
retary,  from  the  existing  mass  of  gold  in  the  treasury,  if 
thereby  a  deficiency  was  created  in  the  redemption  fund, 
and  then  to  make  good  that  deficiency  by  the  sale  of  bonds. 

"  If  the  government  pay  the  interest  on  the  public  debt  in 
gold,  as  it  ought,  it  will  take  somewhat  over  four  millions 
a  month,  beside  payments  for  the  sinking-fund  and  for 
called  bonds,  and  beside  keeping  the  reserve  for  the  re 
demption  of  the  greenbacks.  If  there  is  no  financial  alarm, 
and  no  export  demand  for  gold,  the  sale  of  bonds  of  twenty 
to  forty  millions  might,  as  many  think,  maintain  the  gold 
basis  for  all  the  government  payments,  and  lose  two  mil 
lions  a  month  through  the  rest  of  the  year.  That  is  to  say, 
it  would  make  good  the  deterioration  in  the  financial  condi 
tion  of  the  government  consequent  upon  paying  two  mil 
lions  a  month  for  silver  bullion. 

"  If  the  government  should  be  compelled  to  use  silver  in  its 
payments,  it  would  have  to  be  considered  whether  it  should 
not  pay  the  interest  on  the  bonds,  the  sinking-fund,  and 
the  called  bonds  in  gold,  and  maintain  the  gold  fund 
for  the  redemption  of  greenbacks,  and  use  the  silver  in 
common  with  such  surplus  of  gold  as  may  remain,  in  the 
payment  of  the  other  expenditures  of  the  government. 
This  would  perfectly  protect  the  public  honor  and  faith  ;  but 
you  might  have  some  clamor  against  two  currencies.  It 
could  scarcely  be  said  that  that  made  one  currency  for  the 
government  and  another  for  the  people,  because  the 
greenbacks  are  really  the  people's  currency.  I  write  in 
great  haste,  because  there  is  no  time,  and  can  but  make  im 
perfect  suggestions. 

"  Mr.  Jordan  has  submitted  this  morning  four  statements, 
of  which  I  send  one,  as  containing  some  suggestions  of  de 


tail  which  might  be  useful. 


"Yours  truly, 

"S.  J.  T." 


The  financial  crisis  of  1883,  which  compelled  an  extra 
session  of  Congress,  and  the  repeal  of  the  law  requiring 
large  monthly  purchases  of  silver  by  the  treasury,  lend  a 
special  interest  to  the  following  prescient  letter  to  Mr. 
Manning : 


THE    NATIONAL    FINANCES  293 


TILDEN   TO    MANNING. 

"GRAYSTONE,  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  March  14,  1885. 

"  DEAR  MR.  MANNING  :  I  enclose  a  small  pamphlet 
written  by  Mr.  Coe.  His  theory  is  to  depend  upon  the 
policy  of  not  calling  in  any  bonds,  as  a  means  for  carry 
ing  the  additional  quantity  of  silver  which  the  law  compels 
you  to  buy,  until  some  time  after  the  next  session  of  Con 
gress,  and  until  there  is  another  opportunity  of  trying  to 
get  Congress  to  suspend  the  silver  purchases.  If  the 
making  or  withholding  of  calls  is  in  the  discretion  of  the 
secretary,  which  I  am  inclined  to  think  it  is,  having  as 
yet  found  no  compulsory  mandate,  I  think  it  will  be 
highly  inexpedient  to  exhaust  the  treasury,  if  you  mean 
to  continue  all  the  gold  payments  on  the  gold  basis. 

"  Mr.  Jordan  has  sent  me  a  series  of  statements  which 
show  that  about  $33,000,000  of  the  gold  fund  reserved  for 
the  redemption  of  the  legal  tenders  have  been  consumed  in 
the  ordinary  payments  of  the  treasury.  According  to  the 
construction  adopted  by  your  predecessors,  United  States 
4  per  cent,  bonds  can  lawfully  be  sold  to  make  good  that 
deficiency.  Mr.  Jordan's  figures  cover  some  other  topics. 
Having  partially  examined  them,  I  have  given  them  to  Mr. 
Marble  for  a  few  days,  as  he  can  verify  the  references  to 
the  authorities  more  conveniently  than  I  can. 

"  I  think  that  between  these  two  resources  you  can  tide 
yourself  along  until  the  opportunity  arises  to  make  the 
issue  in  Congress,  without  resorting  to  any  silver  pay 
ments. 

"  I  expect  to  write  to  you  again  within  a  few  days. 
"Very  truly  yours, 

"3.  J.  TILDEN. 
"HoN.  DAN'L  MANNING, 

"Secretary  of  the  Treasury  " 

Mr.  Jordan,  to  whom  the  following  letter  was  addressed, 
had  been  selected  by  Mr.  Manning  for  the  position  of 
treasurer  of  the  United  States.  It  is  quoted  here  partly 
for  its  intrinsic  value  and  partly  to  show  the  active  interest 
which  Mr.  Tilden  took  in  the  administration  of  the  national 
finances  at  a  time  when  the  roar  of  the  breakers  towards 


294  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

which  the  ship  of  state  was  drifting  seemed  more  audible  at 
Graystone  than  elsewhere. 

TILDEN    TO    JORDAN. 

"  (Confidential.) 
"GRAYSTONE,  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  May  15,  1885. 

f?  DEAR  MR.  JORDAN  :  The  memorandum  for  the  solution 
of  the  silver  question  enclosed  in  your  letter  appears  to 
me  to  have  elements  from  which  to  devise  a  measure.  It 
would  need  some  modification  and  require  to  be  perfected. 
The  law  will  put  the  proposition  in  more  definite  shape 
and  will  be  a  better  basis  to  act  on  than  so  brief  and  gen 
eral  a  proposition.  When  General  Warner  shall  have 
written  it  out  please  send  me  a  copy.  The  advantage  of 
bringing  up  the  coin  in  fineness  and  weight  to  the  market 
value  of  the  silver  it  contains  is  very  great.  It  would 
widen  the  market  for  silver  and  so  benefit  the  producers. 
It  should  apply  to  the  half  and  quarter  dollars.  Can  you 
inform  me  what  per  cent,  the  cost  of  coinage  is  on  the 
dollar?  also  on  the  halves  and  quarters  taken  together? 
You  will  remember  that  when  it  was  proposed  to  resume 
specie  payment  nearly  everybody  thought  that  the  prelim 
inary  step  was  to  contract  the  currency.  I  maintained  the 
opposite  views.  I  said  that  nobody  could  tell  how  much 
currency  the  wants  of  business  would  require ;  that  to  as 
sume  an  arbitrary  amount  was  the  heiglit  of  quackery ; 
that  the  only  true  way  was  to  leave  that  matter  to  adjust 
itself  under  a  free  system.  I  apply  the  same  principle  to 
silver.  I  am  willing  to  take  all  that  the  business  of  the 
country  can  absorb :  it  is  impossible  to  do  anything  more. 
To  force  the  quantity  of  the  currency  above  its  natural 
level  is  as  idle  an  attempt  as  was  Dame  Partington's  effort 
with  her  mop  to  keep  back  the  Atlantic  ocean.  The 
measure  should  be  carefully  guarded  to  avoid  any  such 
folly.  It  would  be  necessary  to  invest  the  treasury  with  a 
discretion  which  would  enable  it  to  follow  and  not  to  force 
nature. 

f"It  will  give  me  pleasure  to  see  General  Warner  at 
Graystone.  I  know  him  very  well,  and  think  well  of  him. 

"Very  truly  yours, 

"S.  J.  TILDEN." 


THE    TENURE    OF    OFFICE   ACT  295 

Application  having  been  made  to  Mr.  Tilden  for  his  views 
of  a  draught  of  some  resolutions  designed  to  be  presented 
for  the  adoption  of  the  State  convention  of  the  Democratic 
party  of  New  York  State  in  the  fall  of  1885,  he  sent  the 
following  reply : 

"  Sect.  VI.,  relating  to  the  silver  question,  is  well  enough 
in  substance. 

"Sect.  I.,  relating  to  the  civil  service,  is  free  from  objec 
tions. 

"  Sect.  II.  is  right  and  well  expressed. 

"  Sect.  III.,  proposing  a  repeal  of  certain  laws  of  1869  re 
lating  to  the  tenure  of  office.  That  is  right.  It  restores  to 
the  President  his  power  of  appointment,  which  by  those  laws 
has  been  in  part  usurped  by  the  Senate.  But  a  question 
arises  as  to  the  expediency  of  making  this  declaration  at  the 
present  time.  That  question  will  be  considered  in  connec 
tion  with  Sect.  IV. 

ff  Sect.  IV.  proposes  a  repeal  of  the  laws  of  May  15, 1820, 
which  fixes  the  term  of  four  years  to  a  large  number  of 
important  offices.  Without  deciding  the  question  whether 
if  that  stood  alone  the  extinction  of  fixed  terms  for  these 
offices  is  expedient,  which  is  not  free  from  doubt,  in  prac 
tice  at  the  present  time  the  proposition  involves  insurmount 
able  mischiefs. 

"  The  Senate  will  not  consent  to  a  repeal  of  the  laws  of 
1867  and  1869.  The  Senate  will  be  glad  to  obtain  the 
repeal  of  the  law  of  May  15,  1820.  If  the  President 
and  the  House  of  Representatives  make  a  Democratic 
party  question  in  favor  of  repealing  the  law  of  May  15,  1820, 
the  measure  will  be  passed.  The  practical  effect  will  be  to 
put  all  the  offices  which  now  have  fixed  tenures  under  the 
laws  of  1867  and  1869.  That  result  would  strip  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  only  independent  power  of  appointment  which 
he  now  has,  and  place  him  completely  under  the  tutelage  of 
the  Senate.  It  would  sweep  away  from  the  Democrats  any 
chance  of  obtaining  any  participation  in  the  government  of 
the  country.  If  a  declaration  in  favor  of  repealing  the  laws 
of  1867  and  1869,  which  declaration  will  be  wholly  nugatory 
and  useless,  involves  also  the  declaration  in  favor  of  the 
repeal  of  the  law  of  May  15,  1820,  which  would  be  effect 
ual,  both  ought  to  be  omitted. 


296  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

"The  repeal  of  the  law  of  May  15,  1820,  even  if  proper, 
as  part  of  the  system  in  which  the  repeal  of  the  laws  of  1867 
and  1869  should  be  also  a  part,  it  should  never  be  done  sepa 
rately  or  in  advance.  The  effect  on  the  Democratic  party 
of  such  a  piece  of  Democratic  insanity  it  is  easy  to  foresee. 
It  probably  would  be  a  collapse  of  the  Democratic  party, 
and  of  the  present  Democratic  administration. 

"  On  the  whole,  in  my  judgment  Sections  III.  and  IV.  are 
too  abstruse,  and  involve  topics  which  not  one  man  in  fifty 
in  the  convention  will  have  any  knowledge  of. 

"  They  are  unfit  for  planks  in  the  platform.  They  had 
better  be  omitted,  even  apart  from  the  objection  above 
stated. 

"  Sect.  V.  The  authority  of  Washington,  cited  in  this  sec 
tion,  involves  a  doubt.  Washington's  language  seems  to 
imply  that  all  office-holders  should  be  in  political  accord 
with  the  President.  That  means  a  clean  sweep.  That 
greatly  exceeded  the  claim  of  Mr.  Jefferson  for  his  party. 
He  only  asked  that  they  should  have  a  fair  participation  in 
the  public  trusts  of  the  country.  He  said,  when  he  came 
into  the  presidency,  if  he  had  found  the  Democrats  in  pos 
session  of  even  a  moderate  share,  he  would  have  waited  for 
time  and  circumstances  to  have  remedied  the  injustice  ;  but, 
having  found  a  complete  monopoly  of  the  offices  in  the 
hands  of  the  minority,  who  had  been  discarded  by  the 
people,  he  was  compelled  to  apply  a  prompter  corrective. 

"  You  can  study  Mr.  Jefferson's  principles  and  views  of 
this  subject  with  great  advantage." 

In  March  of  the  year  in  which  this  criticism  was 
despatched  to  Mr.  Manning,  Mr.  Tilden  made  a  careful 
analysis  of  President  Jefferson's  views  of  the  tenure  of 
office  of  the  civil  officers  of  the  federal  government,  with  a 
commentary  thereon  which  reflected  his  own  vieAVS,  and 
the  principles  upon  which,  if  clothed  with  the  responsibil 
ities  of  a  chief  magistrate,  he  would  have  endeavored  to 
regulate  that  service.  It  will  be  found  to  illustrate  the 
difference  in  the  ways  this  problem  is  dealt  with  by  states 
men  and  by  cranks. 


JEFFERSON   AND    THE    CIVIL    SERVICE          297 


JEFFERSON    AND    THE    CIVIL    SERVICE. 

"  Thomas  Jefferson  was  one  of  the  greatest  reformers  that 
this  country  has  produced  —  perhaps  the  greatest.  When 
he  became  President  the  country  was  first  divided  politically 
according  to  the  two  fundamental  interpretations  of  the 
Constitution,  — the  Federalist  and  the  Democratic.  Under 
the  presidency  of  John  Adams,  as  it  had  been  previously 
under  Washington,  the  tendency  of  the  administration  was 
strongly  toward  the  establishment  of  an  overmastering 
Federal  government,  and  the  whole  government  machinery 
was  solidly  organized  in  harmony  with  that  tendency. 
None  but  Federalists  were  in  office.  The  Federalist  idea 
had  gained  a  great  hold  upon  the  people.  If  such  weapons 
as  the  alien  and  sedition  laws  had  not  been  furnished  to  the 
Democrats  by  the  administration,  it  is  scarcely  possible 
that  they  could  have  beaten  their  opponents ;  and,  instead 
of  the  establishment  of  the  Democracy  in  power  at  that 
time,  the  Federalists  might  have  retained  their  control  of 
the  country,  and  so  strengthened  it  that  the  complexion  of 
our  politics  might  now  have  been  materially  different,  and 
perhaps  lacking  in  some  features  that  we  to-day  regard  as 
essential  to  Eepublicanism.  It  was  Jefferson's  mission  to 
arrest  the  inclination  toward  a  more  highly  centralized 
system  of  Federal  control,  and  formally  to  lay  the  founda 
tion  on  which  our  Democracy  has  rested  since  his  time,  and 
must  continue  to  rest  so  long  as  the  Democratic  idea  shall 
endure . 

"  Upon  Jefferson's  accession  to  office  he  found  all  national 
posts  filled  by  members  of  the  Federal  party.  Men  of 
Democratic  views  of  politics  had  been  entirely  proscribed. 
There  was  scarcely  a  Republican  —  so  the  Democrats  were 
then  called  —  enjoying  a  place  of  honor  or  trust  under  the 
government.  In  short,  the  party  that  had  just  carried  the 
election  and  demonstrated  its  supremacy  among  the  people 
had  absolutely  no  participation  whatsoever  in  the  govern 
ment  beyond  its  representatives  on  the  national  ticket  and 
its  members  of  Congress.  The  votes  of  the  majority  had 
changed  the  elective  officers  only.  That  was  all  they  could 
change.  What  remained  to  be  done  in  order  to  carry  out 
their  wishes  was  to  be  done  by  the  executive.  To  do  this, 
to  correct  the  existing  abuses,  and  to  restore  a  political 
equilibrium,  was  regarded  by  the  new  President  as  kindred 


298  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

in  importance  to  the  firm  establishment  of  Democratic  prin 
ciples.  Indeed,  such  a  reform  was  implied  and  rendered 
necessary  by  those  principles,  not  only  for  the  sake  of  a 
more  equal  and  Democratic  distribution  of  responsibility, 
but  because  the  spirit  of  Democracy  is  opposed  to  the  end 
less  continuation  of  one  party  in  power,  and  to  the  institu 
tion  of  a  class  of  bureaucrats. 

"Notwithstanding  the  immensity  of  the  labor,  and  in 
spite  of  vigorous  remonstrances  from  the  defeated  Federal 
ists,  as  well  as  the  feeble  and  petulant  protests  of  impartial 
idlers  who  were  remote  from  politics,  and  whose  souls 
revolted  at  any  form  of  upheaval  or  of  progress,  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  began  his  task  and  carried  it  to  a  successful  completion. 
But  it  was  not  done  without  difficulty,  nor  without  reluc 
tance,  nor  without  appreciation  of  the  disadvantages  and 
imperfections  attached  to  the  work.  An  occasion  for  the 
expression  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  views  upon  the  subject  of 
official  changes,  and  of  the  principles  and  motives  under 
which  he  exercised  the  power  conferred  upon  him  for  mak 
ing  them,  came  but  a  few  months  after  his  inauguration. 
It  was  brought  about  by  a  protest  of  Elias  Shipman  and 
others,  a  committee  of  the  merchants  of  New  Haven, 
against  two  appointments  of  the  President ;  and  his  views 
on  the  subject  are  explained  in  the  following  letter : 

«•  WASHINGTON,  July  12,  1801. 

"  GENTLEMEN:  I  have  received  the  remonstrance  you  were  pleased 
to  address  to  me  on  the  appointment  of  Samuel  Bishop  to  the  office  of 
collector  of  New  Haven,  lately  vacated  by  the  death  of  David  Austin. 
The  right  of  our  fellow-citizens  to  represent  to  the  public  functionaries 
their  opinion  on  proceedings  interesting  to  them  is  unquestionably  a 
constitutional  right,  often  useful,  sometimes  necessary,  and  will  al 
ways  be  respectfully  acknowledged  by  me. 

"  Of  the  various  executive  duties,  no  one  excites  more  anxious  con 
cern  than  that  of  placing  the  interests  of  our  fellow-citizens  in  the 
hands  of  honest  men,  with  understandings  sufficient  for  their  stations. 
No  duty,  at  the  same  time,  is  more  difficult  to  fulfil.  The  knowledge 
of  character  possessed  by  a  single  individual  is,  of  necessity,  limited. 
To  seek  out  the  best  through  the  whole  Union,  we  must  resort  to  other 
information,  which,  from  the  best  of  men,  acting  disinterestedly  and 
with  the  purest  motives,  is  sometimes  incorrect.  In  the  case  of 
Samuel  Bishop,  however,  the  subject  of  your  remonstrance,  time  was 
taken,  information  was  sought,  and  such 'obtained  as  could  leave  no 
room  for  doubt  of  his  fitness.  From  private  sources  it  was  learned 
that  his  understanding  was  sound,  his  integrity  pure,  his  character  un 
stained.  And  the  offices  confided  to  him  within  his  own  State  are 
public  evidences  of  the  estimation  in  which  he  is  held  by  the  State  in 


JEFFERSON  AND    THE    CIVIL    SERVICE          299 

general  and  the  city  and  township  particularly  in  which  he  lives.  He 
is  said  to  be  the  town  clerk,  a  justice  of  the  peace,  mayor  of  the 
city  of  New  Haven,  an  office  held  at  the  will  of  the  Legislature; 
chief  judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  for  New  Haven  county,  a 
court  of  high  criminal  and  civil  jurisdiction,  wherein  most  causes  are 
decided  without  the  right  of  appeal  or  review;  and  sole  judge  of  the 
Court  of  Probates,  wherein  he  singly  decides  all  questions  of  wills, 
settlement  of  estates,  testate  and  intestate,  appoints  guardians,  settles 
their  accounts,  and,  in  fact,  has  under  his  jurisdiction  and  care  all 
the  property,  real  and  personal,  of  persons  dying.  The  two  last 
offices  in  the  annual  gift  of  the  Legislature  were  given  to  him  in  May 
last.  Is  it  possible  that  the  man  to  whom  the  Legislature  of  Connecti 
cut  has  so  recently  committed  trusts  of  such  difficulty  and  magnitude 
is  '  unfit  to  be  the  Collector  of  the  District  of  New  Haven,'  though 
acknowledged  in  the  same  writing  to  have  obtained  all  this  confidence 
*  by  a  long  life  of  usefulness1?  It  is  objected,  indeed,  in  the  remon 
strance,  that  he  is  seventy-seven  years  of  age  ;  but  at  a  much  more  ad 
vanced  age  our  Franklin  was  the  ornament  of  human  nature.  He  may 
not  be  able  to  perform  in  person  all  the  details  of  his  office ;  but  if  he 
gives  us  the  benefit  of  his  understanding,  his  integrity,  his  watchful 
ness,  and  takes  care  that  all  the  details  are  well  performed  by  himself 
or  his  necessary  assistants,  all  public  purposes  will  be  answered.  The 
remonstrance,  indeed,  does  not  allege  that  the  office  has  been  illy  con 
ducted,  but  only  apprehends  that  it  will  be  so.  Should  this  happen,  in 
any  event,  be  assured  I  will  do  in  it  what  shall  be  just  and  necessary 
for  the  public  service.  In  the  meantime,  he  should  be  tried  without 
bein^  prejudged. 

"  The  removal,  as  it  is  called,  of  Mr.  Goodrich  forms  another  sub 
ject  of  complaint.  Declarations  by  myself  in  favor  of  political  toler 
ance,  exhortations  to  harmony  and  affection  in  social  intercourse,  and 
to  respect  for  the  equal  rights  of  the  minority,  have,  on  certain  occa 
sions,  been  quoted  and  misconstrued  into  assurances  that  the  tenure  of 
offices  was  to  be  undisturbed.  But  could  candor  apply  to  such  a  con 
struction?  It  is  not,  indeed,  in  the  remonstrance  that  we  find  it;  but 
it  leads  to  the  explanations  which  that  calls  for.  When  it  is  con 
sidered  that  during  the  late  administration  those  who  were  not  of  a 
political  sect  of  politics  were  excluded  from  all  office;  when,  by  a 
steady  pursuit  of  this  measure,  nearly  the  whole  offices  of  the  United 
States  were  monopolized  by  that  sect ;  when  the  public  sentiment  at 
length  declared  itself,  and  burst  open  the  doors  of  honor  and  confi 
dence  to  those  whose  opinions  they  more  approved,  —  was  it  to  be 
imagined  that  this  monopoly  of  office  was  still  to  be  continued  in  the 
hands  of  the  minority?  Does  it  violate  their  equal  rights  to  assert 
some  rights  in  the  majority  also  ?  Is  it  political  intolerance  to  claim 
a  proportionate  share  in  the  direction  of  the  public  affairs?  Can  they 
not  harmonize  in  society  unless  they  have  everything  in  their  own 
hands  ?  If  the  will  of  the  nation,  manifested  by  their  various  elections, 
calls  for  an  administration  of  government  according  with  the  opinions 
of  those  elected;  if,  for  the  fulfilment  of  that  will,  displacements  are 
necessary,  with  whom  can  they  so  justly  begin  as  with  persons  ap 
pointed  in  the  last  moments  of  an  administration,  not  for  its  own  aid, 
but  to  begin  a  career  at  the  same  time  with  their  successors,  by  whom 
they  had  never  been  approved,  and  who  could  scarcely  expect  from 
them  a  cordial  cooperation?  Mr.  Goodrich  was  one  of  these.  Was  it 
proper  for  him  to  place  himself  in  office  without  knowing  whether 


300  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

those  whose  agent  he  was  to  be  would  have  confidence  in  his  agency? 
Can  the  preference  of  another  as  the  successor  to  Mr.  Austin  be  can 
didly  called  a  removal  of  Mr.  Goodrich  ?  If  a  due  participation  of 
office  is  a  matter  of  right,  how  are  vacancies  to  be  obtained  ?  Those 
by  death  are  few ;  by  resignation,  none. 

"  Can  any  other  mode  than  that  of  removal  be  proposed  ?  This  is 
a  painful  office  ;  but  it  is  made  my  duty,  and  I  meet  it  as  such.  I  pro 
ceed  in  the  operation  with  deliberation  and  inquiry,  that  it  may  injure 
the  best  men  least,  and  effect  the  purposes  of  justice  and  public  utility 
with  the  least  private  distress ;  that  it  may  be  thrown,  as  much  as  pos 
sible,  on  delinquency,  on  oppression,  on  intolerance,  on  ante-revolu 
tionary  adherence  to  our  enemies. 

"  The  remonstrance  laments  *  that  a  change  in  the  administration 
must  produce  a  change  in  the  subordinate  officers  ; '  in  other  words,  that 
it  should  be  deemed  necessary  for  all  officers  to  think  with  their  prin 
cipal.  But  on  whom  does  this  imputation  bear?  On  those  who  have 
excluded  from  office  every  shade  of  opinon  which  was  not  theirs? 
Or  on  those  who  have  been  so  excluded?  I  lament  sincerely  that  un 
essential  differences  of  opinion  should  ever  have  been  deemed  sufficient 
to  interdict  half  the  society  from  the  rights  and  the  blessings  of  self- 
government  ;  to  proscribe  them  as  unworthy  of  every  trust.  It  would 
have  been  to  me  a  circumstance  of  great  relief  had  I  found  a  mod 
erate  participation  of  office  in  the  hands  of  the  majority.  I  would 
gladly  have  left  to  time  and  accident  to  raise  them  to  their  just  share. 
But  their  total  exclusion  calls  for  prompter  corrections.  I  shall  cor 
rect  the  procedure ;  but  that  done,  return  with  joy  to  that  state  of 
things  when  the  only  questions  concerning  a  candidate  shall  be,  Is  he 
honest  ?  Is  he  capable  ?  Is  he  faithful  to  the  Constitution  ? 

"  I  tender  you  the  homage  of  my  high  respect. 

"  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 


rt  This  was  not  all  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  correspondence  on 
this  matter.  On  August  26,  a  little  more  than  one  month 
after  the  letter  to  the  New  Haven  merchants,  the  President 
wrote  as  follows  from  Monticello  to  Mr.  Levi  Lincoln,  of 
Massachusetts,  the  attorney-general  in  his  cabinet : 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  .  .  .  I  am  glad  to  learn  from  you  that  the  answer 
to  New  Haven  had  a  good  effect  in  Massachusetts  on  the  Republicans, 
and  no  ill-effects  on  the  sincere  Federalists.  1  had  foreseen,  years 
ago,  that  the  first  Republican  President  who  should  come  into  office 
after  all  the  places  in  the  government  had  become  exclusively  occu 
pied  by  Federalists,  would  have  a  dreadful  operation  to  perform. 
That  the  Republicans  would  consent  to  a  continuation  of  everything 
in  Federal  hands  was  not  to  be  expected,  because  neither  just  nor 
politic.  On  him,  then,  was  to  devolve  the  office  of  an  executioner, 
that  of  lopping  off.  I  cannot  say  that  it  has  worked  harder  than  1 
expected.  You  know  the  moderation  of  our  views  in  this  business, 
and  that  we  all  concurred  in  them.  We  determined  to  proceed  with 
deliberation.  This  produced  impatience  in  the  Republicans,  and  a 
belief  we  meant  to  do  nothing.  Some  occasion  of  public  explanation 
was  eagerly  desired,  when  the  New  Haven  remonstrance  offered  us 


JEFFERSON    AND    THE    CIVIL    SERVICE         301 

that  occasion.  The  answer  was  meant  as  an  explanation  to  our 
friends.  It  has  had  on  them,  everywhere,  the  most  wholesome  effect. 
Appearances  of  schismatizing  from  us  have  been  entirely  done  away. 

"It  will  be  particularly  interesting  to  those  who  now 
expect  changes  in  offices  with  anxiety,  to  read  such  high 
testimony  as  that  of  Mr.  Jefferson  and  Mr.  Lincoln,  that 
such  changes  can  be  accomplished  with  benefit  to  the 
public  service,  and  with  the  acquiescence  of  such  of  the 
withdrawing  party  as  have  a  right  to  be  heard  in  the  po 
litical  world,  those  who  take  part  in  its  contests,  and 
understand  its  obligations.  The  action  of  Mr.  Jefferson 
in  these  instances  had  '  a  good  effect  on  the  Republicans, 
and  no  ill  effects  on  the  sincere  Federalists.'  But  a  third 
letter  from  the  President  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  dated  at  Wash 
ington  on  Oct.  25,  1802,  gives  a  still  clearer  elucidation  of 
the  ideas  which  guided  him  in  his  administration,  with 
some  additional  comments,  which  are  peculiarly  pertinent 
to  the  situation  of  to-day : 

"DEAR  SIR:  .  .  .  I  still  think  our  original  idea  as  to  office  is 
best;  this  is  to  depend,  for  the  obtaining  a  just  participation,  on 
deaths,  resignations,  and  delinquencies.  This  will  least  affect  the 
tranquillity  of  the  people,  and  prevent  their  giving  in  to  the  sugges 
tion  of  our  enemies,  that  ours  has  been  a  contest  for  office,  not  for 
principle.  This  is  rather  a  slow  operation,  but  it  is  sure,  if  we 
pursue  it  steadily,  which,  however,  has  not  been  done  witli  the  un- 
deviating  resolution  1  could  have  wished.  To  these  means  of  obtain 
ing  a  just  share  in  the  transaction  of  the  public  business  shall  be 
added  one  other,  to  wit,  removal  for  electioneering  activity,  or  open 
and  industrious  opposition  to  the  principles  of  the  present  govern 
ment,  legislative  and  executive.  Every  officer  of  the  government 
may  vote  at  elections  according  to  his  conscience;  but  we  should 
betray  the  cause  committed  to  our  care  were  we  to  permit  the  influ 
ence  of  official  patronage  to  be  used  to  overthrow  that  cause. 

''Here,  then,  in  these  three  short  epistles  of  the  founder 
of  the  Democracy,  is  his  theory  upon  which  a  party  suc 
ceeding  to  the  management  of  the  national  machinery 
after  it  has  been  under  the  hostile  control  of  an  uncom 
promising  partisan  organization,  should  address  itself  to 
the  task  of  obliterating  the  most  objectionable  elements 
of  partisan  rule,  and  instituting  in  their  stead  a  purer 
and  more  Democratic  system. 

"But  these  arguments  of  Mr.  Jefferson  are  concerned 
merely  with  the  principle  that  when  a  party  succeeds  to 


302  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE  N 

the  management  of  federal  affairs,  and  finds  the  govern 
mental  functions  wholly  in  the  hands  of  its  opponents,  it 
has  the  right,  and  it  is  its  duty,  to  establish  its  own  power 
by  turning  its  opponents  out  of  office  ;  even  if  for  no  other 
reason  than  that  it  wants  to  put  its  own  adherents  in 
their  places.  Other  cases,  where  changes  are  confessedly 
necessary,  are  not  referred  to  by  Mr.  Jefferson. 

"  Confidential  offices,  which  powerfully  affect  the  action 
of  the  chief  executive,  must  be  filled  by  persons  in  cordial 
harmony  with  the  executive.  Under  any  other  supposi 
tion  the  election  of  a  partisan  President  would  be  a  farce, 
and  government  by  party  would  be  impossible.  More 
over,  offices  that  have  been  filled  in  violation  of  modern 
civil  service  principles  may  be  changed  without  violating 
those  principles.  So,  also,  offices  conferred  on  the  spoils 
system,  without  reference  to  the  competency  or  fitness  of 
the  incumbents,  are  not  required  by  civil  service  principles 
to  remain  with  the  abuses  uncorrected. 

"  Besides,  experience  has  shown  that  in  all  trusts  where 
the  abuse  is  not  restrained  by  the  vigilant  and  firm  super 
vision  of  the  superior,  directly  interested  in  maintaining 
economy,  there  is  a  tendency  to  the  useless  multiplication 
of  assistants.  Every  officer,  after  a  little  while,  wants  a 
waiter,  and  by  and  by  that  waiter  himself  wants  a  waiter. 
Everybody  deputes  his  duties  to  a  subordinate,  and  with 
draws  himself  into  a  mere  superintendence  of  the  under 
ling.  Moreover,  while  subordinates  are  appointed  to 
oblige  members  of  Congress  or  other  prominent  persons, 
the  whole  drift  is  to  a  creation  of  more  offices.  The  dis- 
tention  to  which  the  public  service  has  now  grown  from 
these  and  other  causes  is  enormous  and  incredible.  A 
glance  at  the  Blue  Book  will  amaze  any  one  who  is  not 
acquainted  with  that  astonishing  record.  Removals  may 
therefore  be  necessary,  not  only  on  the  other  grounds  we 
have  mentioned,  but  also  for  the  purpose  of  promoting 
economy  in  the  public  service. 

"  The  state  of  the  government  is  now  worse  by  many  fold 
-  more  in  need  of  a  change,  more  in  need  of  regenera 
tion,  by  retrenchment  as  well  as  by  removals  —  than  it 
was  when  the  Democracy  began  its  career  in  1801.  The 
defeated  party  retires  after  a  term  of  power  twice  as  long 
as  that  which  the  Federalists  had  enjoyed  when  they  were 
overthrown.  The  perversion  of  the  government  from  the 


MANNING'S    FIRST   REPORT  303 

standard  to  which  government  in  this  country  should  con 
form  is  proportionately  far  greater  than  it  had  been  when 
Mr.  Jefferson's  administration  began.  By  just  so  much  is 
the  present  work  of  reform  more  arduous,  and  its  necessity 
more  imperative. 

"  Thus  the  principles  enunciated  by  President  Jefferson 
eighty-four  years  ago  are  as  true  to-day  as  they  were  then, 
and  they  will  operate  as  beneficently  now  as  they  did  when 
first  brought  into  practice  by  that  great  Democratic  states- 


In  the  following  letter  we  have  an  opportunity  of  seeing 
something  of  the  directions  in  which  he  helped  to  shape 
Mr.  Manning's  first  report  to  Congress : 

TILDEN    TO    MANNING. 

"(Confidential.) 

"Nov.  14,  1885. 

"  DEAR  MR.  MANNING  :  I  have  been  so  much  troubled  by 
a  derangement  of  my  digestion  that  I  could  not  find  an 
opportunity  to  put  in  shape  suggestions  for  you.  But  yes 
terday  having  notice  from  Mr.  Marble  that  he  would  call  in 
the  afternoon  for  consultation  I  dictated,  notwithstanding 
the  suffering  I  was  undergoing,  the  paper  which  I  now 
send. 

"  I  notice  that  you  make  the  surplus  for  the  present  year 
to  be  $70,000,000.  Mr.  Jordan  told  me  a  few  days  ago  it 
would  not  exceed  $40,000,000,  of  which  $24,000,000  would 
be  consumed  by  purchasers  of  silver,  leaving  only  $16,000,- 
000  of  real  surplus.  I  ought  to  know  the  true  amount. 
In  my  judgment  the  passage  of  the  harbor  defences  ought 
to  precede  all  other  discussions  about  the  surplus  revenue. 
What  Mi\  Marble  is  preparing  relates  to  the  silver  question. 

"  If  anything  is  said  about  revenue  reform  or  the  tariff, 
that  topic  should  come  third.  I  incline  to  doubt  whether 
you  can  discuss  the  latter  topic  with  any  advantage.  Cer 
tainly  you  cannot  submit  a  specific  plan  in  your  annual 
report.  The  subject  is  too  complicated  and  extensive  to  be 
disposed  of  incidentally  in  the  general  finance  report. 

"I  am  clear  that  the  discussion  about  harbor  defence 
properly  belongs  to  your  department.  The  reason  is  stated 


304  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

in  the  beginning  of  the  paper  I  send  you.  No  doubt 
either  the  War  or  the  Navy  Department  would  be  glad  to 
occupy  that  ground.  But  not  to  them,  but  to  you  alone, 
belong  the  general  survey  of  the  financial  policy  of  the 
government. 

"Very  truly  yours, 

"S.  J.  TILDEN." 

The  defence  of  our  sea-coast,  to  which  allusions  are 
made  in  the  foregoing  paper,  had  been  occupying  no  in 
considerable  portion  of  Mr.  Tilden's  thought  and  study 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  year  1885,  and  he  was 
anxious  that  the  subject  should  be  pressed  upon  the  atten 
tion  of  Congress  and  of  the  country  with  all  the  authority 
of  a  new  administration.  Having  no  encouragement  to 
submit  his  opinions  upon  this  or  any  other  subject  to  the 
President  directly,  and  anxious  to  give  Mr.  Manning  some 
thing  for  his  report  calculated,  as  he  correctly  believed,  to 
produce  upon  the  country  a  favorable  impression  of  their 
new  and  inexperienced  minister  of  finance,  Mr.  Tilden 
sent  him  a  letter  setting  forth  in  a  general  way  the  results 
of  his  reflections  upon  the  subject  of  harbor  defences. 
In  due  time  he  received  from  the  secretary  the  follow 
ing  humiliating  reply,  —  humiliating  to  Mr.  Tilden  only 
because  it  disclosed  a  situation  so  humiliating  to  Mr. 
Manning : 

MANNING    TO    TILDEN. 

"WASHINGTON,  D.C.,  Dec.  1,  1885. 
"  MY  DEAR  GOVERNOR  :  I  find  that  I  cannot  do  what  I 
wish  to  do  with  the  '  Sea-Coast  Defences '  paper,  and  I 
am  in  great  distress  about  it.  I  had  intended  to  begin  my 
first  report  with  that  paper,  but  I  am  now  reluctantly 
forced  to  the  conclusion  that  it  will  be  impracticable.  My 
report  has  not  been  read  or  discussed  by  any  of  the  people 
here,  but  during  the  past  few  days  I  have  been  called  upon 
to  listen  to  several  public  documents,  and  the  conclusion  I 
have  been  driven  to  is,  that  if  I  were  to  submit  my  report 
(as  I  must,  sooner  or  later)  to  like  reading  and  criticism, 


SEA-COAST   DEFENCES  305 

with  the  '  Sea-Coast   Defences,'  paragraphs  therein   could 
not  be  retained. 

"  I  am  certain  that  if  I  were  to  publish  the  report  without 
conference  with  any  one,  it  would  immediately  and  seriously 
embroil  my  personal  relations  in  two  or  three  cases.  More 
over,  as  I  now  know  what  recommendations  are  to  be 
made,  I  should  put  myself  in  a  most  invidious  position. 
Such  publication  would  be  fatal  to  carrying  through  the 
plan.  If  there  is  no  publication,  I  can  be  of  much  service 
in  pressing  forward  the  policy  so  powerfully  recommended 
in  the  paper,  and  1  judge  that  you  will  prefer  that  to  any 
form  of  stating  it.  I  have  arrived  at  this  decision  after 
deliberate  thought,  and  I  regret  that  I  cannot  give  you  my 
reasons  more  fully ;  but  I  have  talked  them  over  with  Mr. 
Marble,  and  I  hope  to  hear,  after  he  has  explained  the  case 
to  you  in  all  its  bearings,  that  you  approve  my  judgment. 

"  Anxiously  hoping  that  this  may  not  carry  disappoint 
ment,  I  am, 

"  Sincerely  your  friend, 

"DANIEL  MANNING." 

By  return  mail  Mr.  Manning  received  the  following 
reply  from  Mr.  Tilden  : 

TILDEN    TO    MANNING. 

"GRAYSTONE,  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  Dec.  3,  1885. 

"  DEAR  MR.  MANNING  :  You  need  not  concern  your 
self  for  the  omission  to  use  the  discussion  on  our  '  Sea-Coast 
Defences '  which  I  sent  you.  My  purpose  was  to  advance 
a  public  object,  and  to  help  you  to  take  a  position  not  only 
wise  and  patriotic,  but  embracing  many  elements  of  public 
satisfaction  and  popularity. 

"  If  it  would  excite  the  jealousy  of  any  one  of  your 
colleagues,  or  be  regarded  by  them  as  trenching  upon  their 
peculiar  domain,  although  I  should  not  agree  that  they 
would  have  any  cause  for  discontent,  it  may  be  best  to 
sacrifice  something  to  appease  them.  No  explanation  to 
me  is  necessary.  Perhaps,  to  save  the  waste  of  a  morning's 
dictation  at  a  time  when  I  was  not  fit  to  work,  I  may  think 
it  expedient  to  use  the  material  some  other  way. 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"S.  J.  TILDEN." 

VOL.  II.— 20 


306  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

It  had  by  this  time  become  manifest  to  Mr.  Tilden,  not 
only  that  he  was  not  a  persona  grata  to  the  President,  which 
he  more  than  suspected  before,  but  that  it  was  anything  but 
a  recommendation  in  the  President's  eyes  to  be  a  friend  of 
his.  It  was  no  doubt  a  conviction  of  this  sort  which  im 
pelled  Mr.  Tilden  to  address  a  copy  of  his  rejected  views 
about  sea-coast  defences  in  the  following  letter  to  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  by  whom  it  was 
immediately  given  to  the  press  : 

TILDEX    TO    CARLISLE. 

"GRAYSTOXE,  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  Dec.  1,  1885. 

"  DEAR  MR.  CARLISLE  :  As  public  opinion  points  to 
you  as  the  Speaker  of  the  next  House  of  Representatives,  I 
desire  to  submit  a  suggestion  as  to  one  of  the  public  objects 
for  which  an  appropriation  ought  to  be  prompt  and  liberal. 

"  In  considering  the  state  and  management  of  the  public 
revenues,  the  subject  involves  the  questions  whether  we 
shall  extinguish  the  surplus  by  reducing  the  revenue,  or 
whether  we  shall  apply  the  surplus  to  payments  on  the 
public  debt,  or  whether  we  shall  seize  the  occasion  to  pro 
vide  for  our  sea-coast  defences,  which  have  been  long 
neglected.  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  latter  is  a  para 
mount  necessity  which  ought  to  precede  the  reduction  of 
the  revenue,  and  ought  also  to  precede  an  excessive  rapidity 
in  the  payment  of  the  public  debt. 

ct  The  property  exposed  to  destruction  in  the  twelve 
seaports  —  Portland,  Portsmouth,  Boston,  Newport,  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  Charleston,  Savannah,  New 
Orleans,  Galveston,  and  San  Francisco —  cannot  be  less  in 
value  than  five  thousand  millions  of  dollars.  To  this  must 
be  added  a  vast  amount  of  property  dependent  for  its  use 
on  these  seaports.  Nor  does  this  statement  afford  a  true 
measure  of  the  damage  which  might  be  caused  to  the 
property  and  business  of  the  country  by  a  failure  to  protect 
these  seaports  from  hostile  naval  attacks. 

"They  are  the  centres,  not  only  of  foreign  commerce,  but. 
of  most  of  the  internal  trade  and  exchanges  of  domestic 
productions.     To   this    state    of  things  the  machinery  of 
transportation  of  the  whole  country  has  become  adapted. 


SEA-COAST    DEFENCES  307 

The  interruption  of  the  currents  of  traffic  by  the  occupation 
of  one  or  more  of  our  principal  seaports  by  a  foreign 
enemy,  or  the  destruction  of  them  by  bombardment,  or  the 
holding  over  them  the  menace  of  destruction  for  the  pur 
pose  of  exacting  contribution  or  ransom,  would  inflict  upon 
the  property  and  business  of  the  country  an  injury  which 
can  neither  be  foreseen  nor  measured.  The  elaborate  and 
costly  fortifications,  which  were  constructed  with  the 
greatest  engineering  skill,  are  now  practically  useless. 
They  are  not  capable  of  resisting  the  attacks  of  modern 
artillery. 

"A  still  greater  defect  exists  in  our  coast  defences.  The 
range  of  the  best  modern  artillery  has  become  so  extended 
that  our  present  fortifications,  designed  to  protect  the 
harbor  of  New  York,  where  two-thirds  of  the  import  trade 
and  more  than  one-half  of  the  export  trade  of  the  whole 
United  States  is  carried  on,  are  too  near  to  the  great 
populations  of  New  York  city,  Jersey  City,  and  Brooklyn 
to  be  of  any  value  as  a  protection. 

"To  provide  effectual  defences  would  be  the  work  of 
years.  It  would  take  much  time  to  construct  permanent 
fortifications.  A  small  provision  of  the  best  modern  guns 
would  take  several  years.  Neither  of  these  works  can  be 
extemporized  in  presence  of  emergent  danger.  A  million 
of  soldiers,  with  the  best  equipments,  on  the  heights  sur 
rounding  the  harbor  of  New  York,  in  our  present  state  of 
preparation,  or  rather  in  our  total  want  of  preparation, 
would  be  powerless  to  resist  a  small  squadron  of  war 
steamers.  This  state  of  things  is  discreditable  to  our  fore 
sight  and  to  our  prudence.  The  best  guarantee  against 
aggression,  the  best  assurance  that  our  diplomacy  will 
be  successful  and  pacific,  and  that  our  rights  and  honor  will 
be  respected  by  other  nations,  is  in  their  knowledge  that 
we  are  in  a  situation  to  vindicate  our  reputation  and  inter 
ests.  While  we  may  afford  to  be  deficient  in  the  means  of 
offence,  we  cannot  afford  to  be  defenceless.  The  notoriety 
of  the  fact  that  we  have  neglected  the  ordinary  precautions 
of  defence  invites  want  of  consideration  in  our  diplomacy, 
injustice,  arrogance,  and  insult  at  the  hand  of  nations.  It 
is  now  more  than  sixty  years  since  we  announced  to  the 
world  that  we  should  resist  any  attempts,  from  whatever 
quarter  they  might  come,  to  make  any  new  colonizations  on 
any  part  of  the  American  continent ;  that  while  we  should 


308  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE 'N 

respect  the  status  quo  we  should  protect  the  people  of  the 
different  nations  inhabiting  this  continent  from  every 
attempt  to  subject  them  to  the  dominion  of  any  European 
power,  or  to  interfere  with  their  undisturbed  exercise  of 
the  rights  of  self-government.  This  announcement  Avas 
formally  made  by  President  Monroe,  after  consultation  with 
Mr.  Madison  and  Mr.  Jefferson.  It  was  formulated  by  John 
Quincy  Adams.  Our  government  has  firmly  adhered  to 
the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  even  so  late  as  1865  it  warned 
Napoleon  III.  out  of  Mexico.  It  is  impossible  to  foresee, 
in  the  recent  scramble  of  the  European  powers  for  acquisi 
tion  of  colonies,  how  soon  an  occasion  may  arise  for  our 
putting  in  practice  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  It  is  clear  that 
there  ought  to  be  some  relation  between  our  assertion  of 
that  doctrine  and  our  preparation  to  maintain  it.  It  is  not 
intended  to  recommend  any  attempt  to  rival  the  great 
European  powers  in  the  creation  of  a  powerful  navy.  The 
changes  which  have  rapidly  occurred  by  the  diminution  of 
the  relative  resisting  power  of  the  defensive  armor  of  iron 
clads,  and  by  the  increased  efficiency  of  modern  artillery, 
which  on  the  whole  has  gained  in  the  competition,  suggest 
that  we  should  not  at  present  enter  largely  into  the  creation 
of  armored  vessels.  In  the  questions  that  beset  this  subject 
until  they  shall  have  reached  a  solution,  we  can  content 
ourselves  with  adding  but  sparingly  to  our  navy.  But  what 
we  do  add  should  be  the  very  best  that  science  and  experi 
ence  can  indicate.  This  prudential  view  is  ree'nforced  by 
the  consideration  that  the  annual  charge  of  maintaining  a 
war  vessel  bears  an  important  proportion  to  the  original  cost 
of  construction. 

"In  constructing  permanent  fortifications,  and  in  provid 
ing  an  ample  supply  of  the  best  modern  artillery,  the 
annual  cost  of  maintenance  is  inconsiderable.  Nearly  the 
whole  expenditure  is  in  the  original  outlay  for  construction. 
If  we  do  not  make  the  expenditure  necessary  to  provide  for 
our  sea-coast  defences  when  we  have  a  surplus,  and  have 
no  need  to  levy  new  taxes,  we  certainly  will  not  make 
those  expenditures  when  we  have  no  longer  a  surplus  in 
the  treasury.  To  leave  our  vast  interests  defenceless  in 
order  to  reduce  the  cost  of  whiskey  to  its  consumers  would 
be  a  solecism.  The  present  time  is  peculiarly  favorable 
for  providing  for  this  great  national  necessity  too  long 
neglected.  Not  only  does  the  surplus  in  the  treasury 


SEA-COAST   DEFENCES  309 

supply  ample  means  to  meet  this  great  public  want  with 
out  laying  new  burdens  upon  the  people,  but  the  work 
can  now  be  done  at  a  much  lower  cost  than  has  ever 
before  been  possible.  The  defensive  works  would  consist 
almost  entirely  of  steel  and  iron.  These  materials  can  now 
be  had  at  an  unprecedentedly  low  price.  A  vast  supply  of 
machinery  and  of  labor  called  into  existence  by  a  great  vicis 
situde  in  the  steel  and  iron  industries  offers  itself  to  our 
service.  We  should  have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that 
while  we  were  availing  ourselves  of  the  supplies  which 
would  ordinarily  be  unattainable,  we  were  setting  in  motion 
important  industries  and  giving  employment  to  labor  in  a 
period  of  depression.  With  encouragement  by  the  guaran 
tee  of  work,  or  perhaps  by  the  government  itself  furnish 
ing  the  plant,  the  inventive  genius  of  our  people  would 
be  applied  to  the  creation  of  new  means  and  improved  ma 
chinery,  and  establishments  would  spring  into  existence 
capable  of  supplying  all  of  the  national  wants,  and  render 
ing  us  completely  independent  of  all  other  countries  in 
respect  to  the  means  of  national  defence.  I  endeavored  to 
impress  these  ideas  upon  Mr.  Randall  the  last  time  I  had 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  him. 

"  With  my  highest  regards  to  Mrs.  Carlisle  and  yourself, 
I  remain, 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"  S.  J.  TILDES. 
"Hox.  JOHN  G.  CARLISLE." 

The  appearance  of  this  communication  a  few  days  before 
the  submission  of  the  President's  first  annual  message  to 
Congress  was  regarded  with  anything  but  satisfaction  at  the 
White  House,  and  all  the  less  because  the  recommendations 
it  contained  received  not  only  more  attention  from  the 
public  than  any  made  by  the  President  in  his  message,  but 
exerted  an  important  influence  upon  the  legislation  of  the 
country,  which  hardly  could  be  said,  with  truth,  of  any 
recommendation  in  the  message.  The  liberal  appropria 
tions  for  our  "  wooden  walls  "  during  the  succeeding  five 
or  six  years  were,  I  believe,  in  a  large  degree  attributable  to 
the  impression  left  upon  Congress  and  the  country  by  this 
communication. 


310  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

When  announcing  Mr.  Tilden's  death,  the  "  New  York 
World  "  said : 

<f  Only  eight  months  ago  to-day  Mr.  Tilden  wrote  his  let 
ter  to  Mr.  Carlisle  on  the  subject  of  coast  defences.  The 
letter  had  more  weight  with  the  people  than  a  presidential 
message.  It  was  recognized  as  the  thoughtful  plea  of  a 
patriotic  citizen  and  statesman  for  what  he  believed  was  for 
the  safety  and  honor  of  the  nation.  Later  still,  less  than 
two  months  ago,  this  impressive  document  was  followed 
by  a  letter  to  Senator  Hawley  regretting  the  apathy  of 
Congress  on  the  subject,  and  stating  that  seven  hundred 
papers  from  all  parts  of  the  country  and  representing  all 
political  parties  had  been  sent  to  the  writer  endorsing  his 
suggestions  for  strengthening  our  sea-coast  defences.  Mr. 
Tilden  may  be  truly  said  to  have  died  at  the  post  of  duty." 

Mr.  Tilden's  communication  would  probably  not  have 
appeared  just  when  it  did,  had  he  not  been  willing  to  unde 
ceive  all  who  were  under  the  impression  that  he  was  in  any 
respect  responsible  for  the  acts  or  omissions  of  the  Presi 
dent  ;  and  this  had  become  important  for  his  own  peace,  so 
general  was  the  impression  that  his  voice  was  potential  at 
the  White  House. 

Mr.  Tilden  was  reluctant  to  belie ve  that  Mr.  Cleveland 
had  deliberately  determined  to  proscribe  his  friends,  and 
in  spite  of  the  apparent  discrepancy  between  his  reported 
declarations  to  Mr.  Manning  in  the  fall  of  1884,  and  his 
action  in  the  construction  of  his  cabinet  in  1885,  had,  till 
now,  affected  to  believe  that  the  novelty  of  Mr.  Cleveland's 
position,  his  inexperience,  his  extremely  limited  acquaint 
ance  with  the  prominent  figures  in  the  arena  of  federal 
politics,  and  the  intoxication  of  an  unexpected  and  inex 
plicable  elevation,  were  all  transient  conditions,  and  might 
safely  be  left  to  the  remedial  influences  of  time.  To  his 
friend  Watterson,  who  had  inferred  that  he  or  his  friends 
were  not  sharing  in  fair  proportions  the  results  of  Mr.  Til 
den's  presumed  influence  with  the  President,  he  wrote  the 


IDEAS   AS   A    POLITICAL    FORCE  311 

following  letter,  designed  apparently  to  apologize  for  or 
extenuate  the  conduct  of  .the  President.  It  will  be  observed 
that  this  letter  was  written  within  a  month  after  the  inaugu 
ration,  and  eight  months  before  the  appearance  of  his  letter 
to  Mr.  Carlisle,  and  that  it  reveals  to  some  extent  the 
change  which  his  relations  with  the  President  were  already 
undergoing : 

TILDEN    TO    WATTERSON. 

"GRAYSTOXE,  YOXKERS,  N.Y.,  March  26,  1885. 

"DEAR  MR.  WATTERSOX  :  Your  vision  of  the  triumphant 
set  you  mention  is  an  illusion.  Mr.  Green  is  less  jubi 
lant  than  you.  Mr.  Weed  expects  nothing  and  desires 
nothing.  Neither  of  them  is  excited  with  a  sense  of  influ 
ence.  Mr.  Manning  was  coerced  info  the  treasury.  Mr. 
Whitney  alone,  of  all  your  New  York  friends  whom  you 
imagine  in  power  and  forgetting  you,  can  be  considered  as 
successful ;  others  who  might  be  regarded  as  more  partic 
ular  friends  of  yours  have  sought  nothing,  and  no  search- 
warrant  has  been  issued  to  find  them  out  and  install  them 
in  illustrious  positions.  On  the  whole,  your  momentary 
sense  of  neglect  by  old  friends  passed  away  because  it  had 
no  basis  in  fact. 

"  As  to  your  conduct  at  the  convention  in  respect  to  the 
formation  of  the  platform,  my  information  is  that  it  was  as 
meritorious  as  you  state  it  to  have  been. 

"  I  do  not  doubt  that  practical  men  tending  to  the  viewrs 
of  both  sides  could  sit  down  in  a  corner  and  agree  upon  a 
reasonable  measure  for  revenue  reform  wThich  would  satisfy 
you,  and  in  which  you  would  especially  aid  in  the  con 
coction. 

:r  The  administration  has  a  difficult,  if  not  an  impossible, 
task  in  respect  to  appointments.  Mr.  Cleveland  cannot  be 
expected  to  know  men  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  He 
ought  to  try  to  deal  impartially  and  equitably  by  every 
class.  I  do  not  doubt  that  he  is  desirous  to  do  so.  It  is  a 
very  different  matter  to  stand  before  the  country  as  the  re 
sponsible  author  of  an  appointment,  or  to  ask  that  appoint 
ment  under  the  dictation  of  personal  or  local  feeling.  Some 
allowance  ought,  therefore,  to  be  made  for  disappointments. 
And  the  appointing  power,  when  asked  to  do  what  it  cannot, 


312  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

should  soften  a  refusal  by  patient  hearing,  by  frank  and 
friendly  explanation,  and  by  seeking  occasion  to  do  some 
equivalent  act  denoting  a  disposition  to  be  considerate  of 
the  interest  disappointed.  It  is  not  every  hand  that  has  the 
sleight,  even  if  the  requisite  knowledge  of  men  and  access 
to  the  best  sources  of  information  be  possessed.  It  is 
related  of  two  famous  New  York  governors  that  a  man 
applied  to  Governor  Tompkins  for  an  executive  favor,  who 
in  his  own  gracious  manner  refused  it,  and  afterwards  to 
Governor  Clinton,  who  granted  it,  and  that  he  came  away 
much  better  pleased  with  Tompkins  than  with  Clinton. 

"  Besides,  it  must  be  recollected  that  the  Democratic  party 
has  now  been  twenty-four  years  out  of  power,  and  has  had 
no  means  of  educating  trained  party  leaders. 

"In  England  the  government  is  carried  on  by  parlia 
mentary  leaders,  and  the  oratorical  or  debating  faculty  is 
of  great  consequence.  In  this  country  the  government 
must  be  carried  on  by  popular  leaders,  and  a  capacity  for 
party  leadership  is  essential.  In  both,  government  has  to 
be  carried  on  through  human  beings,  a  fact  too  often  for 
gotten  by  theorists. 

"  I  depended  on  ideas  as  a  political  force  more  liberally 
and  less  on  party  machinery  than  anybody  else  has  done. 
What  is  called  patronage  I  never  had  to  any  appreciable 
extent,  and  yet  I  held  my  ascendency  with  the  Democratic 
masses  of  this  State  when  I  had  to  confront  the  adverse 
influence  of  the  executive,  of  the  heads  of  departments,  of 
the  judiciary,  and  of  the  majority  of  both  branches  of  the 
Legislature,  and  of  one-third  of  the  county  leaders.  I  held 
also  a  majority  of  the  voters  of  this  State  against  at  least 
twenty  thousand  office-holders.  I  carried  on  politics  upon 
a  plane  which  approached  to  the  impracticable.  I  do  not 
exact  of  anybody  else  to  encounter  the  risks  I  ran ,  or  to 
imitate  so  adventurous  a  policy.  For  there  was  no  moment 
in  which  I  was  not  willing  to  be  consigned  to  private  life. 
It  seems  to  me  sometimes  remarkable  to  hear  men  called 
great  leaders  who,  while  swaying  all  the  patronage  of  the 
country,  —  federal,  State,  and  local,  —  failed  to  hold  their 
own  party,  or  to  hold  a  majority  of  the  people. 

"  The  Republican  mischief-makers  of  the  press  must  be 
expected  to  try  to  array  the  Democratic  party  into  con 
tending  factions,  as,  for  instance,  the  friends  of  Carlisle 
and  the  friends  of  Randall,  and  they  sometimes  classify  me 


GEORGE    W.    JULIAN  313 

in  these  divisions.  I  am  sure  you  know  me  too  well  to 
think  that  there  is  any  truth  in  such  representations  so  far 
as  concerns  me. 

"  If  I  were  really  exercising  the  power  of  the  govern 
ment,  I  should  dispel  such  fables.  I  do  not  think  the 
administration  means  to  give  any  occasion  for  such  gossip. 
For  my  part,  I  substantially  pursue  the  policy  of  non 
interference  in  the  distribution  of  appointments  by  the 
national  administration.  Aside  from  other  consider 
ations  which  require  this  reserve  from  me,  the  totally 
unfounded  gossip  of  the  journals,  that  Mr.  Tilden's  hand 
is  seen  in  this  or  in  that,  already  swells  my  mail  to  dimen 
sions  impossible  to  answer  or  even  to  read.  If  I  were 
really  to  take  an  active  part  in  appointments,  it  would 
impose  upon  me  a  burden  of  correspondence  which  I  could 
not  endure. 

"I  began  to  write  you  a  short  letter,  but  have  been 
thinking  aloud  until  my  letter  has  outgrown  my  inten 
tion. 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"S.    J.    TlLDEN." 

Soon  after  Mr.  Cleveland's  inauguration  Mr.  Tilden  had 
written  Mr.  Manning  advising  the  appointment  of  Hon. 
George  W.  Julian,  of  Indiana,  as  Commissioner  of  the 
General  Land  Office,  and  suggesting  that  his  letter  be 
shown  to  the  President  and  to  Mr.  Lamar,  the  new 
Secretary  of  the  Interior.  After  enumerating  the  evi 
dences  of  his  abundant  qualifications  for  this  office,  he 
said : 

"I  think  it  would  be  a  most  admirable  appointment. 
Considering  that  he  was  an  original  anti-slavery  man,  it 
would  be  a  graceful  act  in  Mr.  Laniar  to  favor  him.  It 
would  show  how  completely  the  lion  and  the  lamb  had 
laid  down  together,  and  would  tend  to  conciliate  a  pow 
erful  class  in  the  Northern  States." 

If  the  lion  had  laid  down  with  the  lamb,  it  appeared,  in 
this  case,  that  one  had  laid  down  inside  of  the  other,  for 
Mr.  Julian  did  not  get  the  appointment.  In  reply  to  a 


314  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

letter  from  Mr.  Julian,  thanking  Mr.  Tilden  for  his  effort, 
and  announcing  his  own  disappointment,  Mr.  Tilden  said : 

TILDEN    TO    GEORGE    W.    JULIAX. 

"GRAYSTONE,  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  March  24,  1885. 
"  DEAR  MR.  JULIAN  :  I  am  extremely  sorry  to  learn  that 
you  are  not  to  be  Commissioner  of  the  Land  Office.  My 
letter  presented  your  case  as  strongly  as  possible,  and  I 
presume  was  communicated  according  to  the  request  it 
contained ;  although  I  have  not  heard  from  Mr.  Manning 
since.  But  I  do  not  ascribe  so  much  potentiality  to  it  as 
you  seem  inclined  to  do.  Men  in  power  generally  have 
their  plans,  and  take  views  which  they  prefer  to  the 
wishes  of  those  who  have  ceased  to  have  power.  I  hope 
that  there  may  something  else  be  opened  to  you  in  respect 
to  which  you  may  have  better  success. 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"S.  J.  TILDEN." 

In  point  of  fact,  no  one  who  had  taken  any  active  interest 
in  establishing  Mr.  Tilden's  claims  to  the  presidency  before 
the  Electoral  Commission,  or  in  securing  the  testimony 
establishing  the  fraudulent  character  of  the  votes  which  were 
made  the  pretext  for  electing  Hayes,  ever  received  any  rec 
ognition  from  Mr.  Cleveland ;  not  even  those  in  whose 
fortunes  Mr.  Tilden  took  the  trouble,  which  ought  to  have 
been  unnecessary,  to  express  to  the  President  his  personal 
interest.  And  as  if  to  leave  the  friends  of  Mr.  Tilden  in  no 
doubt  as  to  the  significance  of  this  policy,  he  appointed  to 
an  important  office  Mr.  E.  H.  Noyes,  of  Ohio,  who  had  been 
one  of  the  visiting  statesmen  selected  by  Chandler  to  "  hold 
Florida,"  and  whose  defence  of  the  Alachua  fraud  was  of 
so  gross  and  scandalous  a  character  that  nothing  less  than 
the  mission  to  France  was  deemed  by  the  principal  bene 
ficiary  of  that  fraud  a  sufficient  compensation. 

In  the  Ml  of  this  year  the  rumor  reached  Mr.  Tilden 
that  one  of  his  nephews  was  talked  of  for  a  place  on  the 
State  ticket  in  New  York.  The  following  letter  which  he 


A    WARNING    TO    KEEP    OUT    OF   POLITICS      315 

addressed  to  his  nephew  shows  that,  as  early  as  September, 
1885,  he  was  no  longer  under  any  illusions  in  regard  to  the 
attitude  of  the  administration  towards  him  : 

TILDEN    TO    HIS    NEPHEW. 

"GRAYSTONE,  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  Sept.  1,  1885. 

"  MY  DEAR  XEPIIEW  :  In  my  judgment  you  should  not 
entertain  the  slightest  doubt  in  respect  to  going  on  the  State 
ticket  this  fall,  if  that  is  within  your  power.  Both  your 
interest  and  your  duty  require  that  you  should  refuse  any 
such  opportunity  if  it  should  open  to  you.  I  should  look 
upon  your  embarking  upon  a  political  career  as  total  ruin 
to  your  business  interests,  to  your  independence,  and  to 
your  whole  future.  You  cannot  afford  the  expense  of  such 
a  career.  You  cannot  afford  to  pay  even  the  first  assess 
ment.  You  cannot  afford  to  withdraw  your  attention  from 
your  business,  — to  do  so  would  be  unjust  to  your  brother 
and  to  your  creditors. 

w  I  have  felt  much  concern  in  respect  to  your  growing 
taste  for  politics.  You  have  now  reached  a  fork  in  the  road 
when  you  must  choose  whether  you  will  aim  at  pecuniary 
independence,  safety,  and  comfort ;  or  whether  you  will  con 
sent  to  become  a  mere  hanger-on  to  the  uncertain  chances 
of  politics.  Besides,  if  you  were  to  enter  upon  apolitical 
career,  you  could  not  select  a  worse  time  in  which  to  do  it 
than  this  fall.  The  elements  were  never  more  uncertain. 
You  would  be  foolish  to  take  the  chances  now,  even  if  you 
should  do  so  hereafter. 

"  I  write  strongly,  because  I  see  clearly  the  complications 
which  your  becoming  a  candidate  now  would  involve.  If 
you  wish  to  see  me  on  the  subject,  /  can  tell  you  things 
which  I  cannot  write. 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"S.  J.  TILDEN." 

Nor  were  the  relations  between  Mr.  Manning  and  the 
President  much  less,  if  at  all  less,  strained  before  the  close 
of  their  first  official  year  than  with  Mr.  Tilden.  In  reply  to 
some  complimentary  lines  from  the  latter  about  the  secre 
tary's  first  report,  and  congratulations  upon  the  manner  in 


316  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

which  it  had  been  received  by  the  public,  Mr.  Manning 
wrote : 

MANNING   TO   TILDEN. 

"WASHINGTON,  D.C.,  Dec.  21,  1885. 

"  MY  DEAR  GOVERNOR  :  Your  note  of  the  19th  instant 
came  to  me  yesterday. 

"  Words  of  commendation  from  you  have  always  been 
most  welcome,  but  are  more  so  now  than  ever,  feeling,  as  I 
do,  that  I  am  living  in  an  atmosphere  that  is  full  of  mis 
chief,  and  where  the  whirl  is  so  great  that  one  is  inclined 
sometimes  to  doubt  whether  he  comprehends  his  associates, 
or  fully  understands  anything  of  what  he  is  about. 

"  I  think  of  you  every  day  and  of  your  delicate  health,  and 
often  wish  that  you  were  here  to  guide  us  with  your  advice. 
"  Faithfully  yours, 

"DANIEL  MANNING. 
"  HON.  SAM.  J.  TILDEN, 

"  Grcnjstone." 

From  this  time  forth  Mr.  Tilden  refused  to  compromise 
the  chances  of  any  candidates  for  public  employment  under 
the  federal  government  by  yielding  to  their  appeals  for  his 
recommendation.  To  his  friend,  the  late  Eobert  B.  Min- 
turn,  he  wrote : 

TILDEN    TO    ROBERT    B.    MINTURN. 

"  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  Jan.  2,  1885. 

"  DEAR  MR.  MINTURN  :  It  would  be  at  any  time  a  pleas 
ure  to  see  you ;  but  I  am  not  in  communication  with 
Governor  Cleveland  in  respect  to  his  appointments,  and 
think  it  would  be  better  for  you  to  say  what  you  wish 
directly  to  him  or  through  Mr.  Manning. 

"  Very  truly  yours,  • 

"S.  J.  TILDEN. 
"R.  B.  MINTURN,  ESQ." 

Mr.  Manning,  the  only  member  of  the  executive  branch 
of  the  government  with  whom  Mr.  Tilden  was  in  corre- 


MANNING'S  FAREWELL   TO  THE  PRESIDENT     317 

spondencej  was  prostrated  by  apoplexy  as  he  was  returning 
to  his  office  from  a  cabinet  meeting  in  the  following  May, 
and  as  soon  as  he  was  well  enough  to  do  so,  left  Washing 
ton  never  to  revisit  it.  After  a  few  months'  vacation  in 
search  of  health,  on  the  26th  of  July  he  wrote  Mr.  Tilden 
from  Watch  Hill,  where  he  was  staying  at  the  time  : 

"  I  want  to  see  you  very  much  to  talk  about  my  proposed 
communication  to  the  President.  I  feel  more  and  more, 
daily,  that  I  need  your  assistance.  Have  you  thought  over 
the  matter  ?  Have  you  prepared  a  form  for  me  ?  . 
I  do  not  know  when  I  can  get  to  see  you.  It  occupies  a 
day  to  go  from  Watch  Hill  to  New  York  or  Yonkers,  and 
for  me  the  trip  will  be  a  long  one.  Kindly  clear  my  mind 
on  this  point.  I  do  so  want  to  decide  on  my  action  before 
the  occasion  closes.  That  done,  I  should  feel  comparatively 
free.  My  health  is  improving  daily.  My  physician  talks 
encouragingly,  and  I  feel  that  I  am  better  and  stronger  than 
when  I  left  Gray  stone." 

To  this  letter  Mr.  Tilden  sent  the  following  reply : 

TILDEN    TO    MANNING. 

"GRAYSTONE,  July  27,  1886. 

"DEAR  MR.  MANNING:  Your  letter  of  the  26th  is  re 
ceived.  I  have  thought  much  of  the  nature  of  the  commu 
nication  which  you  wish  to  make,  but  have  written  nothing. 
Do  you  wish  to  say  anything  further  than  to  announce 
your  linal  purpose  and  your  reasons  for  it  ?  The  letter,  it 
seems  to  me,  will  be  short. 

"I  will  try  my  hand  on  a  draft  and  send  it  to  you. 
"]STo   further   intelligence   has   been   received   from  our 
friends  in  Europe. 

"I  have  been  busy  all  the  morning  answering  a  letter 
from  Mr.  Fairchild. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"  S.  J.  TILDEN." 

The  Hon.  Charles  S.  Fairchild,  who  had  been  assistant 
secretary  of  the  treasury,  was  at  this  time  acting  secretary 


318  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

of  the  treasury.  The  letter  referred  to  here  and  Mr. 
Tilden's  reply  seem  to  have  closed  his  relations  with  the 
administration  at  Washington. 

ACTING    SECRETARY   FAIRCHILD    TO    TILDEN. 

"TREASURY  DEPARTMENT,  July  24,  1886. 

"  MY  DEAR  MR.  TILDEN  :  You  have  by  this  time  re 
ceived  a  little  pamphlet  containing  a  copy  of  Mr.  Morri 
son's  surplus  resolutions,  a  few  remarks  upon  it  by 
myself,  and  a  number  of  tables  prepared  by  Mr.  Jordan. 
I  wish  to  ask  a  favor  of  you,  and  that  is  to  give  me  your 
views  as  to  the  probable  effect  of  that  resolution  if  it  be 
comes  law ;  if  the  effects  may,  in  your  judgment,  be  evil, 
the  nature  of  the  evil,  and  how  it  will  manifest  itself.  If 
it  causes  silver  mono-metallism  in  this  country,  what  will  be 
the  evil  of  that?  When  is  this  likely  to  be  felt?  Would 
all  the  gold  be  driven  from  use,  and,  if  not,  what  will  be 
the  difference  in  value  between  a  gold  and  silver  dollar? 
etc. 

"  I  wish  to  get  all  the  information  that  I  can  upon  this 
subject  for  immediate  use.  I  do  not  wish  to  take  an  ex^ 
aggerated  view  of  the  evils  which  may  come,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  prefer  for  present  purposes  to  under  rather  than 
over  state  them.  I  know  that  you  will  be  glad  to  help  me 
in  this,  and  hope  that  it  may  not  be  too  much  trouble  to 
you  to  do  so. 

"  Very  respectfully  yours, 

"CHARLES  S.  FAIRCHILD. 

"HoN.  SAMUEL  J.  TILDEN." 

TILDEN   TO    ACTING    SECRETARY   FAIRCHILD. 

"  {Personal  and  confidential.} 

"GRAYSTONE,  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  July  27,  1886. 

"  DEAR  MR.  FAIRCHILD  :  Your  letter  of  July  24th 
reached  me  yesterday  afternoon.  I  hasten  to  acknowledge 
and  answer  it.  You  are  right  in  supposing  that  I  would  be 
glad  to  help  you  in  your  difficult  and  responsible  duty. 

"  You  mention  that  you  desire  to  get  all  the  information 
you  can  upon  the  subject  of  your  letter,  for  'immediate 
use.'  Congress  is  stated  by  the  public  journals  as  likely  to 


THE    SILVER    QUESTION  319 

adjourn  within  a  few  days.  These  circumstances  do  not 
allow  room  for  much  discussion  of  the  complicated  topics 
adverted  to  in  your  letter. 

"  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  resolution  adopted  by  the 
House,  if  it  should  become  a  law,  would  embarrass  the 
effort  of  the  Treasury  Department  to  maintain  the  equality 
in  the  market  value  of  the  different  elements  which  com 
pose  our  circulating  medium.  The  United  States  notes, 
or  legal-tenders,  as  they  are  commonly  called,  and  the 
silver  certificates  are  kept  at  par  with  gold  simply  because 
they  are  received  and  paid  out  by  the  treasury  as  equal  to 
gold  coin ;  because  the  known  policy  of  the  treasury  is 
to  maintain  that  equality ;  and  because  the  treasury  is  kept 
in  possession,  at  all  times,  of  a  sufficient  amount  of  gold  to 
pay  off  any  surplus  of  legal  tenders  and  silver  certificates 
beyond  the  amount  which  the  uses  of  business  can  absorb ; 
and  because  the  public  confidence  that  the  treasury  has  the 
ability  to  carry  out  its  declared  policy  is  thereby  assured. 
Of  course  every  measure  which  impairs  the  resources  of 
the  treasury,  or  its  discretion  in  the  use  of  those  resources, 
weakens  its  power  to  maintain  the  equality  between  the 
various  elements  of  our  present  currency.  But  as  the 
House  resolution  seems  likely  to  be  materially  altered  by 
the  Senate,  it  is  not  useful  to  discuss  hypothetical  meas 
ures. 

"The  present  fallacy  wrhich  infests  the  minds  of  many 
members  of  Congress  is  in  counting  large  amounts  of 
purely  trust  funds  and  large  amounts  of  other  unavailable 
funds  as  if  they  were  resources  of  the  treasury. 

"  As  to  what  would  be  the  premium  on  gold  if  the  treas 
ury  should  conie  to  a  silver  basis  in  its  receipts  and  pay 
ments,  that  is  a  matter  of  conjecture.  In  present  market 
value,  gold  measured  by  silver  is  thirty-five  per  cent, 
higher  than  silver.  I  do  not  think  that  if  gold  and  silver 
were  to  r  part  company '  the  premium  on  gold  would  at  once 
be  nearly  as  large  as  that.  Much  would  depend  on  the 
general  opinion  as  to  when  the  equality  in  market  value 
between  the  two  metals  could  or  would  be  restored,  and 
something  upon  the  future  cost  of  producing  silver.  Of 
course,  gold  would  cease  to  circulate  as  currency  and  would 
take  its  place  among  commodities,  and  be  bought  and  sold 
like  iron  and  wheat.  The  deficiency  in  the  currency 
would  probably  be  supplied  by  paper  issues.  But  these 


320  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

questions  are  too  speculative  to  be  discussed  or  even  stated 
with  exactness  in  this  hasty  letter. 

"It  would  be  very  desirable  to  bring  both  silver  and 
gold  into  use  as  reserves  for  the  basis  of  the  currency,  and 
as  means  of  international  exchanges,  thereby  doubling  the 
quantity  of  the  precious  metals  available  for  those  purposes  ; 
but  that  object  cannot  be  effected  by  the  action  of  the 
United  States  alone. 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"  S.  J.  TlLDEX. 

"Hox.  CHARLES  S.  FAIRCHILD, 

"  Acting  /Secretary  of  the  Treasury." 

<* 

Though  Mr.  Tilden  had  no  occasion  to  waste  any  more 
advice  upon  the  administration  at  Washington,  he  con 
tinued  to  take  an  undiminished  interest  in  public  affairs,  of 
which  to  the  close  of  his  life  his  private  as  well  as  public 
correspondence  bears  testimony.  His  physical  disabilities 
were  gradually  multiplying,  and  engrossed  a  corresponding 
proportion  of  his  thought  and  time.  His  own  apprecia 
tion  of  this  progressive  decay  is  given  in  the  following 
letters : 

TILDEN    TO    SEYMOUR. 

"GRAYSTOXE,  YOXKERS,  N.Y.,  Sept.  22,  1885. 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  I  have  received  your  letter  of  September, 
1885,  enclosing  a  slip  cut  from  the  'Rochester  I3ost  Ex 
press,'  criticising  Mr.  Bigelow's  republication  of  my 
speeches,  and  f  speaking  of  my  action  in  regard  to  canal 
matters ; '  and  also  saying  that  you  had  '  written  to  him 
to  correct  the  errors.' 

"I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  the  trouble  you  have 
taken  in  the  matter.  I  apprehend,  however,  that  it  may  be 
safely  left  to  the  public  or  posterity  to  discredit  or  confute 
the  writer's  misrepresentations. 

"  I  regret  to  hear  that  your  health  is  so  unsatisfactory. 
You  have  my  cordial  sympathies  and  my  best  wishes  for 
the  comfort  and  happiness  of  your  declining  years. 

"  I  am  myself,  although  somewhat  your  junior,  subject 
to  some  infirmities  which  annoy  me  and  create  inconvenient 
disabilities.  My  eyes,  happily,  are  strong,  and  enable  me 


PHYSICAL    INFIRMITIES  321 

to  read  as  much  as  ever ;  and  my  hearing  also  is  very  acute 
in  both  ears ;  but  I  have  a  trouble  of  my  vocal  cords 
which  makes  my  voice  weak  and  sometimes  reduces  me  to 
a  whisper.  Some  of  my  nerves  of  motion,  too,  are  tremu 
lous.  Fatigue  aggravates  this  so  much  that  I  do  not 
travel,  which  I  believe  you  are  generally  able  to  do. 

"  I  should  hope  to  see  you  if  you  should  be  able  to  visit 
me,  were  it  not,  as  I  understand,  your  hearing  is  impaired, 
and  if  we  met  social  intercourse  would  be  very  imperfect 
between  a  dumb  man  and  a  deaf  one. 

"With  my  earnest  good  wishes, 
"Very  truly  yours, 

"S.  J.  TlLDEN. 

"Hox.  HORATIO  SEYMOUR." 

A  few  weeks  later  he  gives  some  further  and  more  inter 
esting  particulars  about  his  physical  condition  in  a  letter  to 
an  old  friend  in  Rochester. 


MR.    TILDEN    TO    MARK    SIBLEY. 

"GRAYSTONE,  Feb.  27,  1886. 

"  DEAR  MR.  SIBLEY  :  I  have  received  your  interesting 
letter.  The  newspapers  are  correct  in  saying  that  the  9th 
of  February  is  my  birthday,  but  some  of  them  are  quite 
astray  in  saying  that  I  am  seventy-nine  years  old.  I  was 
born  the  9th  of  February,  1814,  and  was  seventy-two  years 
old  on  my  last  birthday.  Although  seven  years  younger 
than  you  are,  I  can  readily  believe  that  you  are  practically 
younger  than  I.  You  have  not  done  so  much  as  I  to 
exhaust  the  vital  powers,  and  have  not  so  large  a  debt  to 
pay  for  strength  borrowed  and  consumed  in  advance.  My 
eyes  are  extremely  good  and  enable  me  to  pass  most  of 
my  time  in  reading ;  my  ears  are  both  of  them  much  more 
acute  than  those  of  most  people.  The  doctors  tell  me  that 
every  vital  organ  is  in  strong  and  sound  condition.  But  I 
have  been  for  some  years  greatly  annoyed  by  a  mysterious 
malady  of  some  of  the  nerves  of  motion,  which  imparts  a 
tremor  to  my  hands  and  impairs  my  voice  so  that  I  lose 
most  of  the  pleasure  of  conversation. 

"  I  have  also  read  the  brief  biography  of  your  life  and 

VOL.  II.— 21 


322  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

doings  which  you  were  kind  enough  to  send  me.  It  illus 
trates  an  example  of  an  active,  useful,  and  successful 
career. 

"Wishing  you  every  blessing  of  continued  health,  and 
prolonged  years  of  happiness  and  prosperity, 
"  I  am  very  truly  yours,1 

"  S.    J.    TlLDEX." 

I  A  few  months  only  prior  to  the  date  of  this  letter,  and  while  engaged 
in  a  revision  of  his  will,  Mr.  Tilden  held  a  consultation  with  an  eminent 
physician  not  in  regular  attendance  upon  him,  at  which  I  was  invited  to  be 
present.     I  deemed  the  occasion  of  sufficient  importance  to  warrant  me  in 
making  a  note  of  the  diagnosis  as  it  transpired.     I  quote  the   principal 
features  of  it. 

u  Troubled  all  his  life  with  a  delicate  stomach.  If  he  went  out  to  dine 
and  the  dinner  was  served  a  little  later  than  usual,  he  suffered  from  it. 

".Used  to  surmount  this  trouble  by  horseback  riding.  Used  to  ride  in 
Albany  in  75  when  the  thermometer  was  fourteen  degrees  below  zero. 

II  Now  cannot  ride  a  horse,  can  only  walk  around  the  house  and  ride  in  a 
carriage. 

u  The  shaking  commenced  two  or  three  years  ago. 

u  Some  shaking  in  the  legs,  aggravated  by  fatigue  or  excitement,  with 
pulsations  in  back  of  the  head. 

"Feels  that  he  is  growing  more  feeble  and  his  grip  less  firm.  Has  had 
a  cold  about  three  weeks.  Not  usually  susceptible  to  colds.  Has  not  had 
one  for  two  years  before. 

u  It  began  with  a  slight  cough  and  catarrh.  Drinking  makes  him  cough 
sometimes.  He  wakes  occasionally  during  the  night. 

u  Sleeps  about  an  hour  and  a  half,  three  or  four  times  a  night,  — say, 
five  hours  at  night  and  two  in  the  daytime. 

tl  Never  had  a  pain  in  his  head  in  his  life. 

"Eats   four  times  a  day.     Takes  a  great  deal  of  mutton  broth;  beef, 
bread,  and  a  little,  but  not  much,  vegetables. 
. "  Inclined  to  be  costive. 

u  Uses  enema  of  tepid  water. 

"About  once  a  week  he  takes  a  cathartic  of  Carlsbad  water,  sprudel, 
or  rhubarb  and  aloes.  Takes  stewed  prunes  meantime. 

"  Takes  now  four  grains  of  quinine  three  times  a  day —  twelve  grains 
a  day.  This  is  his  regular  habit. 

u  The  doctors  advised  more,  but  he  held  off,  but  was  afraid  to  leave  off 
altogether.  Is  not  conscious  of  any  effect  of  it  except  more  strength ;  no 
effect  on  his  head  or  chest. 

u  Had  been  taking,  until  a  few  weeks  back,  hyoscyamus,  one  tablet  of 
2-Jo  of  a  grain,  four  times  a  day.  Sometimes  of  j-^-0.  The  highest  he  ever 
took  4^-.  Stopped  five  or  six  weeks  ago  against  the  doctor's  advice.  Has 
less  strength  since  and  more  tremor.  Took  quinine  at  the  same  time  that 
he  took  hyoscyamus.  Thinks  he  was  worse  when  he  left  it  off  than  when 
he  commenced  taking  it.  While  he  took  it,  was  troubled  with  dryness  of 
the  mouth  and  corrugated  tongue.  Less  of  that  since  discontinuance.  Doc 
tors  advised  diminution,  but  not  discontinuance.  Somatimes  feels  that  he 
must  resume  it  as  a  palliative. 

u  Has  twice  stopped  the  use  of  quinine  altogether,  when  he  was  living  in 


HISTORY    OF    THE   MONROE    DOCTRINE          323 

Mr.  Tilden  neglected  no  suitable  opportunity  for  pressing 
upon  his  friends  in  Congress  his  views  of  the  importance 
of  strengthening  our  coast  defences.  In  a  letter  to  the 
Hon.  Samuel  Randall,  of  March  2,  1886,  he  dwelt  upon  the 
expediency  of  the  government's  purchasing  Captain  Erics 
son's  "  Destroyer  "  as  a  means  of  testing  the  efficiency  of 
his  theory  of  submarine  .guns. 

"It  is  a  special  measure  of  economy, "he  wrote,  "for  if  it 
should  turn  out  that  a  machine  costing  about  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars  should  be  capable  of  destroying  a  first- 
class  ironclad  costing  from  three  to  five  millions,  the  result 
would  be  to  cheapen  some  of  the  necessary  defences. 

"  I  wish  you  would  send  me  the  names  of  the  gentlemen 
composing  the  committee  or  sub-committee  whose  province 
it  will  be  to  investigate  and  decide  upon  the  appropriation 
necessary  to  purchase  the  f  Destroyer.'  " 

The  increasing  gravity  of  the  principle  involved  in  what 
is  popularly  known  as  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  in  consequence 
of  the  increasing  complication  of  the  relations  of  our  sister 
republics  with  foreign  nations,  furnished  a  special  motive 
for  strengthening  our  sea-coast  defences  which  was  not  re- 

O  O 

ceiving  the  attention  from  the  authorities  at  Washington, 
still  less  from  the  public,  which  Mr.  Tilden  thought  it  de 
served.  To  assist  in  arousing  a  livelier  sensibility  to  the 
dangers  which  were  to  be  apprehended  from  this  quarter  of 
the  horizon,  Mr.  Tilden  prepared  a  compact  history  of  the 
origin  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  some  of  the  responsi 
bilities  involved  in  maintaining  it,  to  reenforce  his  plea  for 
strengthening  our  sea-coast  defences.  I  give  here  the 
material  portions  of  it  as  it  appeared  in  the  columns  of  the 
"New  York  Sun." 

the  country.  Resumed  it  in  consequence  of  a  cold  and  painless  diarrhoea 
which  weakened  him  very  much. 

"The  doctors  report  his  liver  and  lungs  all  right.  Four  yearg  ago, 
when  he  went  to  live  in  the  country,  could  ride  six  hours.  The  next  year 
he  trembled,  but  could  walk  a  good  deal.  The  first  winter  he  tried  elec 
tricity,  but  it  did  him  no  good  —  he  thought  harm,  rather.  " 


324  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 


"  After  the  final  fall  of  Napoleon  and  his  second  abdica 
tion,  the  Emperor  Alexander  I.  of  Russia,  the  Emperor 
Francis  of  Austria,  and  King  William  III.  of  Prussia, 
formed  a  league.  Alexander  drew  up  the  agreement, 
which  was  signed  at  Paris  by  these  monarchs,  Sept. 
26,  1815 ;  and  they  christened  the  league  the  Holy 
Alliance.  Its  professed  purpose  was  to  regulate  the  States 
of  Christendom  on  principles  of  Christian  amity.  Its  real 
aim  was  to  maintain  existing  dynasties  and  to  suppress  all 
revolutionary  or  popular  movements.  To  secure  the  coop 
eration  of  the  people,  some  of  these  sovereigns,  especially 
Frederick  William  III.,  had  promised  to  give  to  their  sub 
jects  a  liberal  charter,  allowing  them  practical  self-govern 
ment.  But  all  such  promises  were  violated.  To  this 
alliance  most  of  the  European  powers  except  the  Holy  See 
and  England  acceded. 

"The  Holy  Alliance  held  frequent  congresses,  and  its 
policy  was  to  intervene  with  military  force  in  the  internal 
affairs  of  any  country  which  should  attempt  to  establish  less 
despotic  government.  At  its  instance  the  revolutionary 
movements  in  Naples  and  in  Piedmont  were  suppressed  in 
1821.  At  its  instance,  in  1823,  France  marched  an  army, 
nominally  of  100,000  men,  into  Spain,  and  restored  ab 
solutism  in  that  country.  Alexander  of  Russia  assured 
France  of  his  support,  offering  to  march  an  army  to  the 
Rhine. 

"  It  was  known  that  the  Holy  Alliance  meditated  ena 
bling  Spain  to  reconquer  the  States  of  South  America  and 
Mexico.  It  was  arranged  that  the  Holy  Alliance  should 
have  a  consultation  on  the  subject.  The  policy  was  avowed 
to  Mr.  Canning  by  Prince  Polignac,  Ambassador  of  France 
to  England,  of  ensuring,  by  concert  between  the  European 
powers,  the  establishment  of  monarchical  governments  over 
the  revolted  colonies  of  Spain. 

"  Under  Castlereagh  England  had  refused  to  be  a  party 
to  the  engagements  of  the  Holy  Alliance.  Under  the  lead 
of  his  successor  as  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
George  Canning,  she  took  a  position  of  more  pronounced 
dissent  and  opposition.  She  threw  her  moral  weight  in  the 
scale  of  condemnation  of  the  intervention  of  France  in 
the  domestic  affairs  of  Spain. 


HISTORY    OF    THE   MONROE    DOCTRINE          325 

"In  the  meantime  the  United  States  had  recognized  the 
independence  of  the  revolted  colonies  of  Spain.  President 
Monroe,  by  his  special  message  of  March  8,  1822,  recom 
mended  the  measure.  Congress,  by  an  act  approved  May 
4,  1822,  made  an  appropriation  to  defray  the  expenses  of 
such  missions  as  the  President  might  institute  to  the  inde 
pendent  nations  on  the  American  continents. 

"In  1823  Mr.  Canning  proposed  to  Mr.  Rush,  the 
American  Minister  to  Great  Britain,  that  the  United  States 
should  unite  with  England  in  a  joint  declaration  condemn 
ing  any  attempt  of  the  Holy  Alliance  to  help  Spain  to 
reconquer  its  revolted  colonies  in  South  America  and 
Mexico.  In  reply  Mr.  Rush  urged  the  immediate  recogni 
tion  by  England  of  the  independence  of  the  South  Ameri 
can  States.  If  that  were  done  he  offered  to  unite  in  the 
joint  declaration  proposed  by  Mr.  Canning.  The  cor 
respondence  was  transmitted  to  John  Quincy  Adams, 
Secretary  of  State.  President  Monroe  submitted  that 
correspondence  to  Mr.  Jefferson,  and  through  him  to  Mr. 
Madison. 

"  President  Monroe,  after  consulting  Mr.  Jefferson  and 
Mr.  Madison,  availed  himself  of  his  annual  message  of 
Dec.  2,  1823,  to  state  the  position  of  the  American 
government  upon  the  subject.  The  two  passages  of  the 
message  relating  to  this  subject  are  here  given  in  full : 

I. 

"At  the  proposal  of  the  Russian  imperial  government,  made 
through  the  Minister  of  the  Emperor  residing  here,  a  full  power  and 
instructions  have  been  transmitted  to  the  Minister  of  the  United  States 
at  St.  Petersburg  to  arrange,  by  amicable  negotiation,  the  respective 
rights  and  interests  of  the  t\vo  nations  on  the  north-west  coast  of  this 
continent.  A  similar  proposal  had  been  made  by  His  Imperial  Majesty 
to  the  government  of  Great  Britain,  which  has  likewise  been  acceded 
to.  The  government  of  the  United  States  has  been  desirous,  by  this 
friendly  proceeding,  of  manifesting  the  great  value  which  they  have 
invariably  attached  to  the  friendship  of  the  Emperor,  and  their  solici 
tude  to  cultivate  the  best  understanding  with  his  government.  In  the 
discussions  to  which  this  interest  has  given  rise,  and  in  the  arrange 
ments  by  which  they  may  terminate,  the  occasion  has  been  judged 
proper  for  asserting,  as  a  principle  in  which  the  rights  and  interests  of 
the  United  States  are  involved,  that  the  American  continents ,  by  the  free 
and  independent  condition  which  they  have  assumed  and  maintain,  are 
henceforth  not  to  be  considered  as  subjects  for  future  colonization  by  any 
European  powers. 


326  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

II. 

"It  was  stated  at  the  commencement  of  the  last  session  that  a 
great  effort  was  then  making  in  Spain  and  Portugal  to  improve  the 
condition  of  the  people  of  those  countries,  and  that  it  appears  to  be 
conducted  with  extraordinary  moderation.  It  need  scarcely  be  re 
marked  that  the  result  has  been  so  far  very  different  from  what  was 
then  anticipated.  Of  events  in  that  quarter  of  the  globe,  with  which 
we  have  so  much  intercourse,  and  from  which  we  derive  our  origin, 
we  have  always  been  anxious  and  interested  spectators.  The  citizens 
of  the  United  States  cherish  sentiments  the  most  friendly  in  favor  of 
the  liberty  and  happiness  of  their  fellow-men  on  that  side  of  the  Atlan 
tic.  In  the  wars  of  the  European  powers,  in  matters  relating  to 
themselves,  we  have  never  taken  any  part,  nor  does  it  comport  with 
our  policy  so  to  do.  It  is  only  when  our  rights  are  invaded  or  seri 
ously  menaced  that  we  resent  injuries  or  make  preparation  for  our  de 
fence.  With  the  movements  in  this  hemisphere  we  are  of  necessity 
more  immediately  connected,  and  by  causes  which  must  be  obvious  to 
all  enlightened  and  impartial  observers. 

'*  The  political  system  of  the  allied  powers  is  essentially  different  in 
this  respect  from  that  of  America.  This  difference  proceeds  from  that 
which  exists  in  their  respective  governments.  And  to  the  defence  of 
our  own,  which  has  been  achieved  by  the  loss  of  so  much  blood  and 
treasure,  and  matured  by  the  wisdom  of  their  most  enlightened  citi 
zens,  and  under  which  we  have  enjoyed  unexampled  felicity,  this 
whole  nation  is  devoted.  We  owe  it,  therefore,  to  candor  and  to  the 
amicable  relations  existing  between  the  United  States  and  those  powers 
to  declare  that  we  should  consider  any  attempt  on  their  part  to  extend 
their  system  to  any  portion  of  this  hemisphere  as  dangerous  to  our 
peace  and  safety.  With  the  existing  colonies  or  dependencies  of  any 
European  power  we  have  not  interfered,  and  shall  not  interfere.  But 
with  the  governments  who  have  declared  their  independence  and 
maintained  it,  and  whose  independence  we  have,  on  great  considera 
tion  and  on  just  principles,  acknowledged,  we  could  not  view  any  in 
terposition  for  the  purpose  of  oppressing  them,  or  controlling  in  any 
other  manner  their  destiny,  by  any  European  power,  in  any  other  light 
than  as  the  manifestation  of  an  unfriendly  disposition  toward  the 
United  States.  In  the  war  between  those  new  governments  and  Spain 
we  declared  our  neutrality  at  the  time  of  their  recognition,  and  to  this 
we  have  adhered,  and  shall  continue  to  adhere,  provided  no  change 
shall  occur  which,  in  the  judgment  of  the  competent  authorities  of  this 
government,  shall  make  a  corresponding  change  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States  indispensable  to  their  security. 

"  The  late  events  in  Spain  and  Portugal  show  that  Europe  is  still 
unsettled.  Of  this  important  fact  no  stronger  proof  can  be  adduced 
than  that  the  allied  powers  should  have  thought  it  proper,  on  a  princi 
ple  satisfactory  to  themselves,  to  have  interposed  by  force  in  the 
internal  concerns  of  Spain.  To  what  extent  such  interposition  may  be 
carried  on  the  same  principle  is  a  question  to  which  all  independent 
powers  whose  governments  differ  from  theirs  are  interested,  even 
those  most  remote,  and  surely  none  more  so  than  the  United  States. 
Our  policy  in  regard  to  Europe,  which  was  adopted  at  an  early  stage 
of  the  wars  which  have  so  long  agitated  that  quarter  of  the  globe, 
nevertheless  remains  the  same,  which  is,  not  to  interfere  in  the  internal 
concerns  of  any  of  its  powers;  to  consider  the  government  de  facto  as 


HISTORY    OF    THE    MONROE    DOCTRINE          327 

the  legitimate  government  for  us;  to  cultivate  friendly  relations  with 
it,  and  to  preserve  those  relations  by  a  frank,  firm,  and  manly  policy; 
meeting,  in  all  instances,  the  just  claims  of  every  power,  submitting  to 
injuries  from  none.  But  in  regard  to  these  continents,  circumstances 
are  eminently  and  conspicuously  different.  It  is  impossible  that  the 
allied  powers  should  extend  their  political  system  to  any  portion  of 
either  continent  without  endangering  our  peace  and  happiness;  nor 
can  any  one  believe  that  our  Southern  brethren,  if  left  to  themselves, 
would  adopt  it  of  their  own  accord.  It  is  equally  impossible,  there 
fore,  that  we  should  behold  such  interposition,  in  any  form,  with 
indifference.  If  we  look  to  the  comparative  strength  and  resources  of 
Spain  and  those  new  governments,  and  their  distance  from  each  other, 
it  must  be  obvious  that  she  can  never  subdue  them.  It  is  still  the  true 
policy  of  the  United  States  to  leave  the  parties  to  themselves,  in  the 
hope  that  other  powers  will  pursue  the  same  course. 

"These  passages  were  undoubtedly  written  by  John 
Quincy  Adams,  and  assented  to  and  adopted  by  President 
Monroe . 

"  President  Monroe  had  previously  written  to  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  asking  his  advice  upon  the  subject,  and  requesting  him 
to  consult  Mr.  Madison.  He  had  also  sent  to  Mr.  Jefferson 
a  correspondence  between  Richard  Rush,  United  States 
Minister  at  London,  and  George  Canning,  Foreign  Secre 
tary  of  State  for  Great  Britain. 

rr  Mr.  Jefferson's  reply  was  as  follows  : 

"MONTICEI.LO,  Oct.  24r,  1823. 

"DEAR  SIR:  The  question  presented  by  the  letters  you  have  sent 
me  is  the  most  momentous  which  has  ever  been  offered  to  my  con 
templation  since  that  of  independence.  That  made  us  a  nation ;  this 
sets  our  compass  and  points  the  course  which  we  are  to  steer  through 
the  ocean  of  time  opening  on  us.  And  never  could  we  embark  upon 
it  under  circumstances  more  auspicious.  Our  first  and  fundamental 
maxim  should  be,  never  to  tangle  ourselves  in  the  broils  of  Europe. 
Our  second,  never  to  suffer  Europe  to  intermeddle  with  cis-Atlantic 
affairs.  America,  North  and  South,  has  a  set  of  interests  distinct  from 
those  of  Europe,  and  peculiarly  her  own.  She  should,  therefore,  have 
a  system  of  her  own,  separate  and  apart  from  that  of  Europe.  While 
the  last  is  laboring  to  become  the  domicile  of  despotism,  our  endeavor 
should  surely  be  to  make  our  hemisphere  that  of  freedom. 

"  One  nation,  most  of  all,  could  disturb  us  in  this  pursuit;  she  now 
offers  to  lead,  aid,  and  accompany  us  in  it.  By  acceding  to  her  propo 
sition  we  detach  her  from  the  bands,  bring  her  mighty  weight  into  the 
scale  of  free  government,  and  emancipate  a  continent  at  one  stroke, 
which  might  otherwise  linger  long  in  doubt  and  difficulty.  Great 
Britain  is  the  nation  which  can  do  us  the  most  harm  of  any  one  of  all 
on  earth,  and  with  heron  our  side  we  need  not  fear  the  whole  world. 
With  her,  then,  we  should  sedulously  cherish  a  cordial  friendship,  and 
nothing  would  tend  more  to  knit  our  affections  than  to  be  fighting  once 
more  side  by  side  in  the  same  cause.  Not  that  I  would  purchase  even 
her  amity  at  the  price  of  taking  part  in  her  wars. 


328  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

"But  the  war  in  which  the  present  proposition  might  engage  us, 
should  that  be  its  consequence,  is  not  her  war,  but  ours.  Its  object  is 
to  introduce  and  establish  the  American  system  of  keeping  out  of  our 
land  all  foreign  powers,  of  never  permitting  those  of  Europe  to  inter 
meddle  with  the  affairs  of  our  nations.  It  is  to  maintain  our  own 
principle,  not  to  depart  from  it.  And  if,«to  facilitate  this,  we  can  effect 
a  division  in  the  body  of  the  European  powers,  and  draw  over  to  our 
side  its  most  powerful  member,  surely  we  should  do  it.  But  I  am 
clearly  of  Mr.  Canning's  opinion  that  it  will  prevent  instead  of  provoke 
war.  With  Great  Britain  withdrawn  from  their  scale  and  shifted  into 
that  of  our  two  continents,  all  Europe  combined  would  not  undertake 
such  a  war.  For  how  would  they  propose  to  get  at  either  enemy 
without  superior  fleets  ?  Nor  is  the  occasion  to  be  slighted  which  this 
proposition  offers,  of  declaring  our  protest  against  the  atrocious  viola 
tions  of  the  rights  of  nations,  by  the  interference  of  any  one  in  the 
internal  affairs  of  another,  so  flagitiously  begun  by  Bonaparte,  and  now 
continued  by  the  equally  lawless  alliance,  calling  itself  holy. 

"  But  we  have  first  to  ask  ourselves  a  question  :  Do  we  wish  to  ac 
quire  to  our  own  confederacy  any  one  or  more  of  the  Spanish  prov 
inces  ?  I  candidly  confess  that  1  have  ever  looked  on  Cuba  as  the  most 
interesting  addition  which  could  ever  be  made  to  our  system  of  States. 
The  control  which,  with  Florida  Point,  this  island  would  give  us  over 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  countries  and  isthmus  bordering  on  it,  as 
well  as  all  those  whose  waters  flow  into  it,  would  fill  up  the  measure 
of  our  political  well-being.  Yet,  as  I  am  sensible  that  this  can  never 
be  obtained,  even  with  her  own  consent,  but  by  war,  and  its  independ 
ence,  which  is  our  second  interest  (and  especially  its  independence  of 
England),  can  be  secured  without  it,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  abandoning 
my  first  wish  to  future  chances,  and  accepting  its  independence,  with 
peace  and  the  friendship  of  England,  rather  than  its  association  at  the 
expense  of  war  and  her  enmity. 

"I  could  honestly,  therefore,  join  in  the  declaration  proposed,  that 
we  aim  not  at  the  acquisition  of  any  of  those  possessions,  that  we  will 
not  stand  in  the  way  of  any  amicable  arrangement  between  them  and 
the  mother  country;  but  that  we  will  oppose  with  all  our  means  the 
forcible  interposition  of  any  other  power,  as  auxiliary,  stipendiary,  or 
under  any  other  form  or  pretext,  and  most  especially  their  transfer  to 
any  power  by  conquest,  cession,  or  acquisition  in  any  other  way.  I 
should  think  it,  therefore,  advisable  that  the  Executive  should  encour 
age  the  British  government  to  a  continuance  in  the  dispositions  ex 
pressed  in  these  letters  by  an  assurance  of  his  concurrence  with  them 
as  far  as  his  authority  goes ;  and  that  as  it  may  lead  to  war,  the  decla 
ration  of  which  requires  an  act  of  Congress,  the  case  shall  be  laid 
before  them  for  consideration  at  their  first  meeting  and  under  the 
reasonable  aspect  in  which  it  is  seen  by  himself. 

"  I  have  been  so  long  weaned  from  political  subjects,  and  have  so 
long  ceased  to  take  any  interest  in  them,  that  I  am  sensible  I  am  not 
qualified  to  offer  opinions  on  them  worthy  of  any  attention.  But  the 
question  now  proposed  involves  consequences  so  lasting  and  effects  so 
decisive  of  our  future  destinies  as  to  rekindle  all  the  interest  I  have 
heretofore  felt  on  such  occasions,  and  to  induce  me  to  the  hazard  of 
opinions  which  will  prove  only  my  wish  to  contribute  still  my  mite 
toward  anything  which  may  be  useful  to  our  country.  And,  praying 
you  to  accept  it  at  only  what  it  is  worth,  I  add  the  assurance  of  my 
constant  and  affectionate  friendship  and  respect. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    MONROE    DOCTRINE          329 

"The  general  idea  of  keeping  ourselves  disentangled 
from  the  controversies  and  wars  of  European  States  was 
also  contained  in  Washington's  Farewell  Address. 

"The  germ  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  will  be  found  in 
several  letters  of  Jefferson,  —  one  to  Thomas  Paine,  dated 
March  18,  1801 ;  another  to  William  Short,  dated  Oct.  3, 
1801. 

"Still  later,  a  letter  of  Jefferson,  dated  Oct.  29,  1808, 
said :  c  We  consider  their  interests  and  ours  as  the  same, 
and  that  the  object  of  both  must  be  to  exclude  all  European 
influence  in  this  hemisphere.' 

"Mr.  Gallatin,  the  American  Minister  to  France,  wrote 
to  J.  Q.  Adams,  Secretary  of  State,  June  24,  1823,  that 
before  leaving  Paris  he  had  said  to  M.  Chateaubriand, 
the  French  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  on  May  13  :  *  The 
United  States  would  undoubtedly  preserve  their  neutrality, 
provided  it  were  respected,  and  avoid  every  interference 
with  the  politics  of  Europe.  ...  On  the  other  hand,  they 
would  not  suffer  others  to  interfere  against  the  emancipation 
of  America.' 

"  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams,  Secretary  of  State,  in  his 
diary,  under  date  of  July  17,  1823,  says  that,  in  a  conver 
sation  with  Baron  Tuyl,  the  Russian  Minister,  he  told  him 
that  r  we  should  contest  the  right  of  Russia  to  any  terri 
torial  establishment  on  this  continent,  and  that  we  should 
assume  distinctly  the  principle  that  the  American  conti 
nents  are  no  longer  subjects  for  any  new  European  colonial 
establishments.' 

"  The  reply  of  Mr.  Madison  was  as  follows  : 

"To  President  Monroe. 

"OCT.  30,  1823. 

"  DEAR  SIR:  I  have  just  received  from  Mr.  Jefferson  your  letter  to 
him,  with  the  correspondence  between  Mr.  Canning  and  Mr.  Rush, 
sent  for  his  and  my  perusal,  and  our  opinions  on  the  subject  of  it. 

"From  the  disclosures  of  Mr.  Canning  it  appears,  as  was  otherwise 
to  be  inferred,  that  the  success  of  France  against  Spain  would  be  fol 
lowed  by  an  attempt  of  the  holy  allies  to  reduce  the  revolutionized 
colonies  of  the  latter  to  their  former  dependence. 

"  The  professions  we  have  made  to  these  neighbors,  our  sympathies 
with  their  liberties  and  independence,  the  deep  interest  we  have  in  the 
most  friendly  relations  with  them,  and  the  consequences  threatened  by 
a  command  of  their  resources  by  the  great  powers,  confederated 
against  the  rights  and  reforms  of  which  we  have  given  so  conspicuous 
and  persuasive  an  example,  all  unite  in  calling  for  our  efforts  to  de 
feat  the  meditated  crusade.  It  is  particularly  fortunate  that  the  policy 


330  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

of  Great  Britain,  though  guarded  by  calculations  different  from  ours, 
has  presented  a  cooperation  for  an  object  the  same  with  ours.  With 
the  cooperation  we  have  nothing  to  fear  from  the  rest  of  Europe,  and 
with  it  the  best  assurance  of  success  to  our  laudable  views.  There 
ought  not,  therefore,  to  be  any  backwardness,  I  think,  in  meeting  her 
in  the  way  she  has  proposed;  keeping  in  view,  of  course,  the  spirit 
and  forms  of  the  Constitution  in  every  step  taken  in  the  road  to  war, 
which  must  be  the  last  step  if  those  short  of  war  should  be  without 
avail. 

"It  cannot  be  doubted  that  Mr.  Canning:s  proposal,  though  made 
with  the  air  of  consultation  as  well  as  concert,  was  founded  on  a  pre 
determination  to  take  the  course  marked  out,  whatever  might  be  the 
reception  given  here  to  his  invitation.  But  this  consideration  ought 
not  to  divert  us  from  what  is  just  and  proper  in  itself.  Our  coopera 
tion  is  due  to  ourselves  and  to  the  world,  and  while  it  must  ensure 
success  in  the  event  of  an  appeal  to  force,  it  doubles  the  chance  of 
success  without  that  appeal.  Jt  is  not  improbable  that  Great  Britain 
would  like  best  to  have  the  merit  of  being  the  sole  champion  of  her 
new  friends,  notwithstanding  the  greater  difficulty  to  be  encountered, 
but  for  the  dilemma  in  which  she  would  be  placed.  She  must,  in  that 
case,  either  leave  us  as  neutrals,  to  extend  our  commerce  and  naviga 
tion  at  the  expense  of  hers,  or  make  us  enemies  by  renewing  her 
paper  blockades  and  other  arbitrary  proceedings  on  the  ocean.  It  may 
be  hoped  that  such  a  dilemma  will  not  be  without  a  permanent  ten 
dency  to  check  her  proneness  to  unnecessary  wars. 

"  Why  the  British  cabinet  should  have  scrupled  to  arrest  the  calamity 
it  now  apprehends,  by  applying  to  the  threats  of  France  against  Spain 
the  small  effort  which  it  scruples  not  to  employ  in  behalf  of  Spanish 
America,  is  best  known  to  itself.  It  is  difficult  to  find  any  other  ex 
planation  than  that  interest  in  the  one  case  has  more  weight  in  its 
casuistry  than  principle  had  in  the  other. 

"  Will  it  not  be  honorable  to  our  country,  and  possibly  not  altogether 
in  vain,  to  invite  the  British  government  to  extend  the  '  avowed 
disapprobation1  of  the  project  against  the  Spanish  colonies  to  the  enter 
prise  of  France  against  Spain  herself,  and  even  to  join  in  some  declara 
tory  act  in  behalf  of  the  Greeks?  On  the  supposition  that  no  form 
could  be  given  to  the  act  clearing  it  of  a  pledge  to  follow  it  up  by 
war,  we  ought  to  compare  the  good  to  be  done  with  the  little  injury  to 
be  apprehended  to  the  United  States,  shielded  as  their  interests  would 
be  by  the  power  and  the  fleets  of  Great  Britain  united  with  their  own. 
These  are  questions,  however,  which  may  require  more  information 
than  I  possess,  and  more  reflection  than  I  can  now  give  them. 

**  What  is  the  extent  of  Mr.  Canning's  disclaimer  as  to  « the 
remaining  possessions  of  Spain  in  America  ?  '  Does  it  exclude  future 
views  of  acquiring  Porto  Rico,  etc.,  as  well  as  Cuba?  It  leaves  Great 
Britain  free,  as  I  understand  it,  in  relation  to  other  quarters  of  the 
globe. 

"  I  return  the  correspondence  of  Mr.  Rush  and  Mr.  Canning,  with 
assurances,  etc. 

"J.   M. 
"  To  Thomas  Jefferson. 

"  MOXTPELIER,  Nov.  1,  1823. 

"  DEAR  SIR:  I  return  the  letter  of  the  President.  The  correspond 
ence  from  abroad  has  gone  back  to  him  as  you  desired.  I  have 


HISTORY    OF    THE    MONROE    DOCTRINE          331 

expressed  to  him  my  concurrence  in  the  policy  of  meeting  the  ad 
vances  of  the  British  government,  having  an  eye  to  the  forms  of  our 
Constitution  in  every  step  in  the  road  to  war.  With  the  British  power 
and  navy  combined  with  our  own,  we  have  nothing  to  fear  from  the 
rest  of  the  world,  and  in  the  great  struggle  of  the  epoch  between 
liberty  and  despotism,  we  owe  it  to  ourselves  to  sustain  the  former,  in 
this  hemisphere  at  least.  I  have  even  suggested  an  invitation  to  the 
British  government  to  join  in  applying  the  '  small  effort  for  so  much 
good'  to  the  French  invasion  of  Spain,  and  to  make  Greece  an  object 
of  some  such  favorable  attention.  Why  Mr.  Canning  and  his  col 
league  did  not  sooner  interpose  against  the  calamity,  which  could  not 
have  escaped  foresight,  cannot  be  otherwise  explained  but  by  the 
different  aspect  of  the  question  when  it  related  to  liberty  in  Spain,  and 
to  the  extension  of  British  commerce  to  her  former  colonies. 


"  Mr.  Canning  was  glad  of  the  cooperation  of  the  United 
States,  but  was  too  much  devoted  to  the  aggrandizement  of 
England  to  accept  President  Monroe's  declaration  against 
the  colonization  of  any  portion  of  America  by  any  Euro 
pean  power.  France  and  Russia  likewise  objected  to  that 
principle. 

"The  position  taken  by  England,  and  especially  the 
announcement  by  Mr.  Canning  that  any  attempt  by  France 
to  aid  Spain  in  the  reconquest  of  her  revolted  colonies 
would  be  followed  by  the  immediate  acknowledgment  by 
England  of  their  independence,  undoubtedly  had  great 
effect  in  defeating  the  plans  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  and, 
indeed,  of-  all  schemes  by  European  powers  to  appropriate 
to  themselves  any  part  of  the  former  colonial  dominions  of 
Spain. 

"  But  it  was  not  until  January,  1825,  that  England 
formally  acknowledged  the  independence  of  the  South 
American  States.  In  announcing  that  event  Mr.  Canning 
gave  way  to  his  celebrated  burst  of  oratory :  '  I  sought 
materials  for  compensation  in  another  hemisphere.  Con 
templating  Spain  such  as  our  ancestors  had  known  her,  I 
resolved  that,  if  France  had  Spain,  it  should  not  be  Spain 
with  the  Indies.  I  called  the  New  World  into  existence 
to  redress  the  balance  of  the  Old.'  Thus  the  English  states 
man  claimed  credit  for  a  result  largely  due  to  the  assertion 
by  the  United  States  of  the  principle  which  has  become  so 
well  known  as  the  Monroe  Doctrine." 

In  the  year  1884  Jacob  Sharp,  of  New  York  city,  suc 
ceeded  in  procuring  from  the  Legislature  a  charter  for  the 


332  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

construction  of  a  surface  railway  through  Broadway,  then 
the  most  considerable  and  popular  thoroughfare  in  New 
York  city.  It  soon  became  notorious  that  the  charter  was 
obtained  by  the  rankest  corruption,  and  that  the  aldermen 
of  New  York  city  who  gave  effect  to  the  charter  were,  with 
a  few  exceptions,  paid  largely  for  their  votes.  Mr.  Tilden, 
through  the  press  and  through  his  private  correspondence, 
urged  upon  the  Legislature  its  duty  to  repeal  the  charter 
at  once.  It  was  largely  due  to  his  exertions  that  the  rail 
road  committee  of  the  Senate,  early  in  March,  reported 
unanimously  that  the  charter  was  obtained  by  fraud ;  that 
the  organization  was  a  sham,  and  concealed  a  scheme  to 
appropriate  to  the  personal  benefit  of  a  few  desperate 
speculators  "  the  most  valuable  street  railroad  in  the  world 
without  legal  authority,  without  the  consent  of  the  prop 
erty-holders  on  Broadway,  and  without  any  adequate  com 
pensation  to  the  city."  Most  of  the  articles  which  appeared 
in  the  leading  New  York  journals  during  the  latter  days  of 
the  session  of  the  Legislature  in  1886,  urging  the  repeal  of 
this  charter,  were  dictated  by  Mr.  Tilden.  He  also  urged 
Governor  Hill  to  support  him  in  his  efforts.  The  two 
letters  which  follow  were  written  mainly  to  press  this  duty 
upon  the  Governor. 

TILDEN   TO   GOVERNOR   HILL. 

"  (Personal  and  confidential  ) 

"GRAYSTONE,  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  March  20,  1886. 

"  DEAR  GOVERNOR  HILL  :   I  send  you  a  series  of  papers. 

"1.  The  first  is  on  the  accountability  of  corporations, 
which  shows  the  authority  for  a  legislative  repeal  of  the 
Broadway  Railroad  charter.  It  is  the  same  which  I  handed 
to  you  when  you  were  at  Graystone.  I  send  it  in  connection 
with  the  papers  which  are  now  added. 

"  2.  The  second  paper  is  an  authority  from  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  showing  the  repeatability  of  a 
street-railroad  charter,  and  its  effect  not  only  to  vacate  the 
charter,  but  also  to  vacate  the  franchise  in  a  public  street. 


THE  BROADWAY  RAILROAD    CHARTER  333 

"3.  Papers  3,  4,  5,  and  6  elicited  by  Mr.  Carter's  argu 
ment  in  behalf  of  the  Seventh  Avenue  Railroad  Company, 
showing  how  the  great  organs  of  public  opinion  deal  with 
the  pretext  of  those  who  claim  to  be  innocent  holders,  and 
as  such  entitled  to  indulgence  and  protection. 

"  The  truth  is,  that  on  the  facts  as  now  disclosed  there 
are  no  innocent  holders,  nor  any  holders  who  had  not  suffi 
cient  information  to  put  them  on  their  guard  against  the 
stock  and  bonds  tainted  with  fraud  and  corruption. 

"  Least  of  all  can  the  Seventh  Avenue  Company  set  up 
any  such  pretence. 

"In  the  first  place,  the  notoriety  of  the  grounds  of  sus 
picion  and  fraud  and  corruption  which  has  attended  the 
transaction  from  its  beginning,  and  which  carried  moral 
conviction  to  the  whole  public,  is  sufficient  to  deprive  any 
purchaser  of  the  character  of  an  innocent  investor,  and  to 
convict  him  of  engaging  in  the  transaction  at  his  voluntary 
risk. 

*'  In  the  second  place,  the  omission  of  a  compliance  with 
the  legal  conditions  necessary  to  a  valid  organization  of  the 
Broadway  Railroad  Company ;  and  the  legal  conditions 
necessary  to  the  existence  of  the  right  to  construct  the 
railroad ;  the  failure  to  give  adequate  notice  of  the  meeting 
of  the  aldermen  at  which  the  grant  was  carried  over  the 
Mayor's  veto,  which  rendered  the  action  of  the  Board  of 
Alclermen  giving  their  consent  totally  void,  and  other  legal 
irregularities,  —  were  all  things  which  the  purchaser  of 
stock  and  bonds  was  bound  to  inquire  into. 

"  The  Seventh  Avenue  Company,  so  far  from  being  an 
innocent  holder,  was  the  active  principal  in  the  whole 
transaction.  It  controlled  the  disposal  of  the  stock  and 
bonds,  and  guaranteed  the  bonds,  and  leased  in  perpetuity 
the  Broadway  Railroad.  If  any  other  party  afterwards 
bought  stock  or  bonds,  he  would  acquire  no  better  title 
than  the  Seventh  Avenue  Railroad  Company  had,  and  could 
communicate.  If  he  has  been  cheated,  his  remedy  lies  on 
the  guarantee  of  the  Seventh  Avenue  Railroad  Company, 
or  otherwise  against  that  company.  He  has  no  equity 
against  the  defrauded  city  to  indemnify  him  against  his 
own  laches. 

"  The  interests  of  public  morality  require  that  the  holders 
of  the  booty,  whether  at  first  or  second  hand,  should  not  be 
allowed  to  carry  it  off  triumphantly. 


334:  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

ff  You  are  the  representative  of  the  Democratic  party  of 
the  State  of  New  York.  It  is  necessary  that  the  purpose 
to  defeat  this  conspiracy  of  fraud,  corruption,  and  public 
robbery  should  be  conspicuously  manifested  by  you. 

"  The  more  effectual  and  the  more  swift  the  measures  of 
redress  are,  the  greater  will  be  the  popular  approval.  An 
accessory  measure  would  be  to  take  away  from  the  aldermen 
the  power  to  pass  any  grant  over  the  Mayor's  veto.  A  sin 
gle  man  standing  up  before  the  face  of  the  community 
would  never  make  such  a  grant.  The  Cantor  bill,  as 
amended,  ought  to  pass  ;  but  it  is  imperfect,  and  additional 
legislation  ought  to  be  applied.  It  can  be  added  to,  or  its 
operation  limited,  hereafter. 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"S.    J.    TlLDEX." 

TILDEN    TO    GOVERNOR   HILL. 

"  (Personal  and  confidential.} 

"GRAYSTONE,  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  March  24,  1886. 

"  DEAR  GOVERNOR  HILL  :  Your  special  message  is  ad 
mirable.  Such  action  is  the  best  answer  to  those  who 
depreciated  you  in  the  last  canvass.  I  was  not  mistaken 
in  thinking  it  would  be  received  with  general  popular 
applause.  But  you  have  now  to  follow  up  the  issue  which 
you  have  so  well  made,  and,  if  possible,  conduct  your  side 
of  it  to  complete  success. 

I  have  always  regarded  President  Cleveland's  advertise 
ment  that  he  did  not  desire  to  influence  the  action  of 
Congress  as  a  great  mistake.  A  public  man  must  show 
not  only  that  he  is  individually  (though  impotently)  right, 
but  that  he  can  lead  his  party- followers  and  make  them, 
and  be  himself,  to  the  largest  practicable  extent,  a  power  for 
good.  Otherwise,  when  he  comes  to  be  judged  it  will  be 
said  that  he  is  better  than  his  party,  but  must  be  discarded 
because  he  cannot  effect  results.  I  hope,  therefore,  you 
will  exert  all  the  moral  influence  you  possess  to  induce  the 
Legislature  to  pass  such  legislation  as  you  recommend.  I 
think  a  law  ought  to  be  enacted  that  the  consent  of  the 
local  authorities  of  the  city  of  New  York  to  the  laying 
down  of  a  railroad  track  in  any  street  of  the  said  city  shall 
not  be  made  effectual  by  the  vote  of  any  aldermen  if  the 


THE   BROADWAY  RAILROAD    CHARTER  335 

resolution  giving  such  consent  shall  have  been  vetoed  by 
the  Mayor  of  the  said  city,  or  without  the  assent  of  a 
majority  in  interest  of  owners  of  property  abutting  on  the 
said  street.  The  streets  in  the  city  of  New  York  are 
already  well  provided  with  north  and  south  railroads,  so 
that  a  man  need  walk  but  one  block,  and  generally  but  half 
a  block,  in  order  to  reach  one  of  these  railroads,  and  very 
little  room  is  left  for  the  convenience  of  vehicles  other  than 
railroad  cars.  Additional  lines  should  only  be  granted 
after  great  deliberation  and  the  fullest  public  discussion. 
The  Fifth  avenue  should  be  kept  clear  as  an  access  to 
the  Central  park.  On  the  east  side  of  it,  Madison,  Fourth, 
Third,  and  Second  avenues  have  each  a  horse  railroad, 
and  the  Third  and  Second  have  elevated  railroads.  On  the 
west  side  the  Sixth,  Seventh,  Eighth,  and  Ninth  avenues 
and  Broadway  have  each  a  horse  railroad ;  and  the  Sixth 
and  Ninth  avenues  have  each  an  elevated  railroad.  Noth 
ing  is  left  except  Fifth  avenue,  most  of  Lexington  avenue, 
and  Broadway  below  Fourteenth  street. 

"  The  cable  railroad  would  take  Lexington  avenue,  cut 
ting  through  Graniercy  park,  which  is  maintained  by  the 
adjacent  owners  without  cost  to  the  city. 

"These  facts  are  sufficient  to  show  that  no  harm  can 
come  from  imposing  the  restraints  suggested.  The  abuse 
of  the  power  of  the  aldermen  to  give  the  consent  of  the 
local  authorities  against  the  veto  of  the  Mayor  shows  that 
such  power  ought  to  be  taken  away.  The  improvidence 
attending  the  appointment  of  commissioners  by  the  General 
Term  empowered  to  dispense  with  the  consent  of  the  abut 
ting  property-owners  shows  that  such  authority  ought  to 
be  taken  away. 

"But,  of  course,  the  great  measure  is  to  repeal  the 
Broadway  Kailroad  charter  and  the  franchise  of  that  com 
pany,  if  it  has  in  reality  acquired  that  franchise  to  run  a 
street  railroad  in  Broadway.  I  do  not  know  that  you  will 
be  able  to  accomplish  all  that  is  desirable,  but  there  is  no 
harm  in  submitting  the  foregoing  suggestions  for  your 
consideration. 

"  Since  writing  the  above,  I  have  received  the  printed 
copy  of  the  message. 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"  SAMUEL  J.  TILPEN." 


336  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

Learning  that  I  was  expecting  to  meet  Mr.  Koscoe 
Conkling,  then  acting  as  counsel  for  the  Broadway  prop 
erty-holders  for  the  repeal  of  the  charter,  Mr.  Tilden 
addressed  rne  the  following  letter: 


TILDEX    TO    BIGELOW. 

(Personal  and  confidential.) 

"GRAYSTONE,  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  March  21,  1886. 

"  DEAR  MB.  BIGELOW  :  If  you  see  Mr.  Conkling  I 
wish  you  would  suggest  to  him,  in  case  he  frames  remedial 
bills  for  the  Senate  committee,  the  high  expediency  of  a 
bill  taking  away  the  power  of  the  Board  of  Aldermen  to 
pass  an  act  over  the  Mayor's  veto,  giving  the  consent  of 
the  local  authorities  to  the  laying  down  of  railroad  tracks 
in  any  street  in  the  city  of  New  York.  The  bill  should 
also  impose  the  condition  requiring  the  consent  of  a  ma 
jority  in  interest  of  the  owners  of  property  abutting  on 
every  street  in  which  such  tracks  are  proposed  to  be  laid 
down. 

"  The  bill  should  also  require  that  the  franchise  of  run 
ning  such  railroad  should  be  sold  at  auction,  for  a  gross 
sum,  to  l)e  paid  in  cash  for  the  benefit  of  the  sinking-fund 
of  the  city  of  New  York. 

"  The  necessity  of  the  provision  taking  away  the  power 
of  the  Board  of  Aldermen  to  pass  a  grant  over  the  Mayor's 
veto  is  quite  obvious.  The  requiring  the  separate  consent 
of  the  Mayor  will  be  effectual.  No  Mayor  will  defy  the 
general  public  opinion,  or  consent  to  an  improvident  or 
corrupt  act. 

'*  The  propriety  of  taking  away  the  power  of  the  General 
Term  by  appointing  commissioners  and  confirming  their  ac 
tion,  to  overcome  the  restraint  created  by  the  disapproval  or 
antagonism  of  the  property-owners,  is  shown  by  the  evidence 
taken  by  the  Senate  committee,  illustrating  the  improvi 
dence,  favoritism,  or  collusion  which  attended  the  recent 
appointment  of  improper  persons  as  commissioners. 

rf  The  sale  of  the  franchise  for  a  gross  sum  instead  of  a 
percentage  on  the  gross  or  net  income  of  the  railroad  will 
be  alone  effectual  to  secure  the  city  a  just  compensation. 
In  one  contest  the  city  may  triumph ;  but  in  a  continuing 


GLADSTONE   AND   PARNELL  337 

contest  for  annual  payments,  to  be  annually  ascertained  and 
collected,  the  city  will  sooner  or  later  be  beaten. 

"If  any  credit  should  be  given,  that  should  be  only  on 
first-mortgage  bonds  deposited  in  the  sinking-fund.  Even 
that  is  not  altogether  safe.  If  the  grant  is  valuable,  the 
grantee  may  as  well  raise  the  money  and  pay  it  into  the 
sinking-fund.  That  system  will  be  free  from  after-claps. 

"  One  word  in  respect  to  the  Broadway  Railroad  grant. 
The  interest  of  public  morality  and  official  fidelity  and 
honor  cannot  afford  to  have  Mr.  Conkling  beaten  in  his 
present  professional  crusade.  It  is  of  great  importance 
that  the  present  case  should  be  an  example  of  public  jus 
tice,  and  not  of  successful  villainy. 

"  Mr.  Conkling's  professional  reputation  will  be  greatly 
enhanced  by  his  success  in  defeating  the  conspiracy  of 
plunder.  This  cannot  be  done  by  paltering  in  half  meas 
ures.  The  exercise  of  the  indubitable  power  of  the  Legis 
lature  to  repeal  the  Broadway  charter  (which  would  carry 
with  it  the  annulment  of  the  franchise  to  run  the  road,  but 
which  had  better  be  expressed  in  the  bill)  is  the  only 
proper  measure. 

"  Public  opinion  strongly  and  unanimously  demands  this 
remedy.  The  sham  of  pretended  innocent  holders  deceives 
nobody. 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"S.  J.  TILDEX. 
"Hex.  JOHN  BIGELOW." 

Mr.  Tilde n  shared  the  sympathy  generally  felt  in  this 
country  for  the  cause  of  Home  Rule,  which  in  1886  was 
passing  into  one  of  its  most  discouraging  phases.  He  had, 
however,  more  faith  than  was  then  generally  felt  in  Glad 
stone  as  the  Moses  to  whom  the  task  of  leading  the  people 
of  Ireland  out  of  bondage  seemed  to  have  been  confided. 
In  reply  to  an  invitation  to  address  a  mass  meeting  of  the 
friends  of  the  cause  in  JSTew  York  city,  Mr.  Tilden  sent 
the  following  reply : 

"GRAYSTONE,  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  May  6,  188G. 
"DEAR  SIR:  I  am  honored  by  your  invitation  to  attend 
and  address  the  grand  mass  meeting  at  the  Academy  of 
Music,  on  Friday  evening,  May  7th. 

VOL.  II.  — 22 


338  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

"  The  delicate  state  of  my  health  will  prevent  me  from 
complying  with  your  invitation. 

"I  cordially  and  earnestly  concur  with  you  in  desiring 
to  give  the  most  imposing  expression  of  the  approval, 
admiration,  and  applause  with  which  America  regards  the 
magnificent  effort  of  the  Premier  of  Great  Britain  to  con 
summate  and  crown  his  career  of  illustrious  services  to 
mankind,  by  2fivin^  the  blessings  of  Home  Rule  to  the  lon<? 

»7    O  O  O 

misgoverned  people  of  Ireland. 

"  The  voice  of  America  speaks  in  the  place  of  the  voice 
of  posterity.  It  is  inspired  by  the  best  hopes  of  a  genuine 
human  progress  which  may  redeem  past  errors  of  England 
towards  Ireland,  and  the  false  policy  towards  other  peoples 
which  has  cost  England  so  dear. 

"  Next  to  the  renowned  Gladstone  the  need  of  gratitude 
is  due  to  Farnell  for  so  signal  an  advance  of  the  cause  of 
local  self-government  among  mankind. 
"Your  fellow-citizen, 

"SAMUEL  J.  TILDEN. 
"Hox.  JOHN  Fox, 

"  Chairman  Sub-Committee? 

There  were  two  bills  being  pressed  on  the  Legislature  in 
the  interest  of  rogues  at  the  session  of  1885-1886,  both  of 
which  Mr.  Tilden  exerted  all  his  influence,  and  with  success, 
to  defeat.  Their  character  and  his  view  of  them  will 
appear  in  the  following  letter  to  the  Governor : 

"  (Confidential.) 

"GEAYSTONE,  June  16,  1886. 

"  DEAR  GOVERNOR  HILL  :  I  infer  from  what  Mr.  Green 
tells  me  that  you  feel  the  burden  of  resisting  the  pressure 
of  the  advocates  of  the  bill  pretending  to  complete  the 
abolition  of  imprisonment  for  debt,  and  of  the  bill  appro 
priating  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  doubling  the 
length  of  the  locks  on  the  Erie  canal. 

"In  respect  to  the  first  of  these  bills,  in  my  judgment, 
the  clamor  in  its  favor  is  confined  to  a  very  few  persons 
who  have  been  imposed  upon  by  scoundrels  seeking  to  get 
a  legislative  pardon  for  their  offences.  It  is  superficial 


NOTES    ON    CANALS  339 

and  will  not  endure  discussion.  The  bill  is  artfully  worded 
so  as  to  destroy  what  Mr.  O'Conor  and  myself  thought  to 
be  the  most  valuable  instrument  which  the  laws  afford  for 
the  punishment  of  great  acts  of  public  robbery.  If  the 
existing  law  needs  to  be  made  more  lenient  in  some  cases, 
that  should  be  done  by  a  carefully  framed  bill  which  should 
do  no  general  mischief.  If  you  veto  this  bill  you  will  be 
successfully  defended,  and  will  add  to  your  reputation  as  a 
watchful  guardian  of  the  public  interests. 

"  In  respect  to  the  other  bill,  its  immediate  effect  will  be 
the  waste  of  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  of  the  public 
money ;  but  its  ultimate  effect  will  be  to  enter  upon  an  im 
mense  expenditure  and  the  creation  of  new  canal  rings. 
You  will  have,  sooner  or  later,  to  arrest  the  system  or  dis 
credit  your  administration. 

"  I  think  a  pitched  battle  on  the  subject  would  in  the 
long  run  do  you  good  instead  of  harm ;  but  I  admit  that  a 
considerable  .  .  .  public  opinion  has  been  artificially 
created  in  its  favor. 

"I  have  twice  destroyed  a  similar  scheme.  But  if  you 
think  it  expedient  to  defer  the  contest  until  the  public  mind 
can  be  better  educated  (though  if  it  were  my  case  I  should 
make  it  now),  you  can  let  this  bill  pass  with  less  permanent 
harm  than  the  first-mentioned  bill  would  produce. 

"If  the  State  has  already  borrowed  or  authorized  the 
borrowing  of  a  million  of  dollars  for  the  Niagara  Falls  park, 
or  for  that  and  other  purposes,  amounting  in  the  aggregate 
to  a  million  of  dollars,  this  act  would  be  a  violation  of  Sec 
tion  10  of  Article  7  of  the  Constitution. 

"  Perhaps  a  simple  statement  of  this  objection,  if  it  exist, 
would  be  the  easiest  way  to  dispose  of  this  bill  and  of  ad 
journing  the  discussion. 

"  I  would  not  trouble  myself  if  I  had  not  a  sincere  and 
deep  solicitude  for  the  welfare  of  your  administration. 
«  Very  truly  yours, 

«S.  J.  TILDEN." 

Among  Mr.  Tilden's  papers  was  found  a  document  en 
dorsed  "  Copy  of  Notes  on  the  Canals,  written  by  Mr. 
Tilden  on  Sept.  4  and  5,  1885,  in  answer  to  queries  ad 
dressed  to  him."  I  presume  the  original  was  sent  to  some 


340  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

one  in  the  Legislature  who  was  conducting  the  war  upon 
the  canal-enlarging  scheme  referred  to  in  the  preceding 
letter.  There  is  probably  no  American  now  living  who 
knows  as  much  about  the  New  York  canal  system  or  about 
interior  water-way  economics  of  all  kinds  as  Mr.  Tilden 
did.  The  questions  to  which  these  notes  reply  are  as  vital 
to-day  as  they  ever  were,  for  the  constitutional  conven 
tion  of  New  York  in  1894  rashly  broke  down  the  barriers 
wisely  erected  by  the  Convention  of  1846,  and  successfully 
guarded  by  Tilden  as  legislator,  governor,  and  counsellor 
for  forty  years,  and  has  placed  the  people  once  more  at 
the  mercy  of  a  new  canal  ring,  which  is  rapidly  taking 
shape  again  under  its  auspices.1 

I  may  here  remark  incidentally  that  I  have  reason  to  be 
lieve  that  it  was  largely  in  deference  to  Mr.  Tilden's  advice 
that  Governor  Hill  gave  his  approval  also  to  the  bill  for 
the  protection  of  the  Adirondack  forests  and  the  Interna 
tional  Park  bill. 

"NOTES  ox  THE  CANALS,  i884-s. 

"  I.  Would  not  the  expense  of  deepening  the  canal,  so  as 
to  add  two  feet  to  the  depth  of  water,  be  very  great  ?  I 
understand  that  now  for  a  great  part  of  its  course  the  bottom 
of  the  canal  is  composed  for  about  a  foot  of  day  and 
hydraulic  cement,  packed  closely,  so  as  to  prevent  breakage, 
and  would  not  the  expense  of  taking  this  up,  and  replacing 
it  after  the  bottom  was  dug  up,  be  more  serious  than  any 
calculation  has  yet  allowed  9 

"  The  idea  of  increasing  the  depth  of  the  canal  two  feet  is 
a  gross  exaggeration  of  what  is  possible  or  proper  to  do. 

"To  build  up  the  banks  two  feet  would  necessitate  build 
ing  up  the  locks.  To  excavate  the  bottom  two  feet  would 
be  impracticable. 

1  The  following  is  the  provision  which  opens  the  door  of  the  public 
treasury  to  the  new  canal  ring : 

Art.  vii.,  Section  10.  The  canals  may  be  improved  in  such  manner  as 
the  Legislature  shall  provide  by  law.  A  debt  may  be  authorized  for  that 
purpose  in  the  mode  prescribed  by  section  four  of  this  article,  or  the  cost 
of  such  improvement  may  be  defrayed  by  tht,  appropriation  of  funds  from 
the  State  treasury,  or  by  equitable  annual  tax. 


NOTES    ON   CANALS  341 

"At  page  23  of  my  message  for  1875,  it  was  stated: 
'  The  water-way  was  practically  never  excavated  in  every 
part  to  its  proper  dimensions.  Time,  the  action  of  the  ele 
ments,  and  neglect  of  administration,  all  tend  to  fill  it  by 
deposits.' 

"  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  sides  of  the  water-way  have 
been  changed  and  the  slope  filled  in  with  silt,  narrowing 
the  bottom  of  the  canal  so  that  it  is  only  in  the  middle  that 
the  proper  depth  is  approached,  and  inconvenience  is  felt  in 
one  boat  passing  another. 

"  My  suggestion  was  to  bring  up  the  canal  to  an  honest 
seven  feet.  All  the  structures  of  the  canal  were  adapted  to 
that.  Bring  it  up  to  seven  feet,  — honest  seven  feet,  —  and 
on  all  the  levels,  wherever  you  can,  bottom  it  out;  throw 
the  excavation  upon  the  banks ;  increase  that  seven  feet 
toward  eight  feet,  as  you  can  do  so  progressively  and  eco 
nomically ;  you  may  also  take  out  the  bench  walls.  This 
suggestion  looked  to  gaining  on  the  long  levels,  when  it 
was  found  practicable,  some  inches  increasing  seven  feet 
toward  eight  feet.  The  suggestion  was  carefully  limited, 
because  in  many  places  you  cannot  change  the  bottom  with 
out  interfering  with  culverts  or  carrying  the  excavation 
below  the  mitre  sills  of  the  locks. 

"  As  to  the  capacity  of  the  Erie. 

'*  The  lockages  at  Frankfort  during  the  season  of  1884 
were  20,800. 

"The  lockages  in  1873  were  stated,  on  page  22  of  my 
message  of  1875,  to  have  been  24,960. 

r  The  theoretical  capacity  of  the  canal  will  be  three  or 
four  times  the  largest  tonnage  it  has  reached.  There  is  no 
doubt  it  can  conveniently  and  easily  do  double  the  business 
which  has  ever  existed,  even  though  the  locks  be  not  manned 
and  worked  with  the  highest  efficiency.' 

"  If  that  was  true  when  the  lockages  were  25,000,  how 
much  more  so  is  it  when  the  lockages  have  fallen  to  20,800, 
as  in  1884? 

"  II.  How  far  does  the  fact  that  the  lake  transportation 
has  almost  entirely  passed  into  the  hands  of  railroad  people 
effect  the  probability  of  increasing  the  business  of  the  canal, 
in  case  it  should  be  deepened? 

"III.  Can  the  canal  be  maintained  in  the  face  of  the 
increasing  railroad  competition? 


342  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

"  Total  tons  of  each  class  of  articles  which  came  to  the 
Hudson  river  from  Erie  and  Champlain  canal : 

"  (Annual  Report  of  the  Superintendent  of  Public  Works  upon  the  Trade 
and  Tonnage  of  the  Canals  for  the  Year  1884,  page  100.} 

1874.  1884. 

Products  of  the  forest       .     .     .  1,192,681  1,097,450 

Agriculture 1,470,872  1,054,041 

Manufacture 49,426  56,899 

Merchandise 12,905  45,538 

Other  articles 497,228  377,259 


Total 3,223,112         2,631,190 

"  Tonnage  of  the  canal  and  of  the  Central  and  Erie  Bail- 
roads  : 

tl  (From  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Superintendent  of  Public  Works  upon 
Trade  and  Tonnage  of  the  Canals  for  the  Year  1880,  pages  94-95.) 

1874.  1884. 

New  York  canals 5,804,588         5,009,488 

New  York  Central  Eailroad  .     .     6,114,678       10,212,418 
Erie  Kailway 6,364,276      116,219,598 


Total 18,283,542       31,441,504 

"  The  railroads  have  competed  successfully  with  the  Erie 
canal  and  have  carried  off  all  the  increase  in  the  tonnage. 
Notwithstanding  the  State  has  ceased  to  charge  tolls,  and 
has  imposed  an  annual  tax  of  $700,000  upon  the  taxpayers 
to  maintain  the  canals,  the  Erie  canal  has  failed  to  keep  up 
its  business.  It  holds  on  to  a  portion  of  the  lumber  and  of 
the  grain. 

"  There  seems  to  be  no  probability  that  the  Erie  canal 
will  regain  any  portion  of  the  business  it  has  lost. 

' '•  Xone  of  the  grand  schemes  by  which  it  is  proposed  to 
enlarge  or  improve  it  can  to  any  appreciable  extent  cheapen 
the  transportation.  They  will  simply  waste  the  money  of 
the  taxpayer  and  revive  the  system  of  contracting,  jobbery, 
and  fraud. 

"  The  advantage  of  lengthening  the  locks  so  as  to  pass 

1  Of  this  amount  5,147,660  tons  is  the  tonnage  for  twelve  months  of 
the  N.Y.,  P.,  &  O.  R.B.  Co.  leased  by  the  Erie. 


NOTES    ON    CANALS  343 

two  boats  at  once,  when  there  is  plenty  of  time  to  pass  four 
times  the  boats  which  the  tonnage  requires,  is  doubtful  and 
is  at  best  inconsiderable.  It  can  only  pretend  to  save  five 
minutes  in  a  lockage  —  if,  in  fact,  it  will  save  any  time. 

"Unless  some  effectual  expedient  be  adopted  to  prevent 
the  waste  of  water  in  locking  through  a  single  boat,  it 
would  consume  three  times  as  much  water  in  the  long  lock 
as  in  the  short  lock.  I  understand  that  the  superintendent 
thinks  that  ruinous  mischief  can  be  avoided,  but  I  have 
had  no  means  of  testing  how  the  thing  would  work  in 
practice. 

"In  1867,  when  I  examined  the  subject,  I  found  that  on 
the  Delaware  and  Karitan  they  used  boats  of  about  the 
same  dimensions  as  the  boats  in  use  on  the  Erie,  notwith 
standing  the  locks  were  capable  of  passing  two  boats  at  a 
time. 

"  I  send  my  message  of  1875,  my  speech  in  the  constitu 
tional  convention  of  1867,  which  contains  a  fuller  discussion 
of  the  subject. 

"I  send  also  the  last  report  of  the  Superintendent  of 
Public  Works  on  the  canals. 

"  The  statistical  tables  are  so  changed  from  the  ancient 
forms  that  it  is  difficult  to  get  the  materials  for  a  satisfac 
tory  comparison  of  the  present  with  the  former  business. 
A  certain  portion  of  the  business  naturally  belongs  to  the 
railroads.  The  principles  which  govern  this  division  are 
set  forth  in  the  beginning  of  my  speech  in  1867. 

:t  The  business  would  naturally  be  divided  and  the  share 
of  the  railroads  would  be  increased  as  the  net-work  of  the 
railroads  is  perfected  and  more  and  more  points  are 
touched.  Besides,  the  railroads  will  compete  for  addi 
tional  business  at  less  than  cost,  charging  the  loss  upon  the 
paying  portion  of  their  traffic. 

"  On  the  whole  it  must  be  observed  within  the  last  ten 
years  the  cost  of  transportation  by  railroads  has  been 
reduced  one-half.  All  the  improvements  tending  to 
cheapen  transportation  are  made  by  the  railroads. 

"  As  to  the  clamor  about  diverting  traffic  to  the  Canadian 
lines,  it  is  senseless.  The  great  mass  of  grain  brought  from 
the  West  is  for  local  consumption.  Two  millions  and  a 
half  of  people  residing  in  the  city  of  New  York  and  its 
suburbs  are  not  going  to  bring  the  grain  for  their  own  con 
sumption  by  way  of  Montreal.  A  large  share  of  the  flour 


344  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

and  grain  carried  by  the  New  York  Central  is  for  local  con 
sumption  in  New  England.  Formerly  it  came  to  NeAV 
York  city  and  was  distributed  from  that  point.  It  is  now 
carried  direct.  For  instance,  flour  and  grain  for  con 
sumption  at  Springfield  and  Worcester  are  carried  from 
the  point  of  shipment  in  the  West  direct  to  those  places 
without  change  of  cars.  They  cannot  be  diverted. 

:'  The  Erie  canal  still  has  a  certain  utility.  It  should  be 
nursed  along,  but  without  any  expectation  of  regaining 
the  place  it  once  occupied  in  the  transportation  of  the 
country. 

"  The  taxpayer  of  this  State  will  not  always  consent  to 
pay  a  bonus  of  seven  hundred  thousand  dollars  per  year  in 
order  to  get  tonnage  for  the  Erie  canal." 

In  the  year  1886  the  "Albany  Argus"  proposed  to  cele 
brate  its  bi-centennial  birthday.  Mr.  James  H.  Manning, 
the  son  of  his  old  friend  the  late  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
and  representative  of  his  interest  in  the  paper,  asked  Mr. 
Tilden  to  make  a  contribution  to  its  bi-centennial  number. 
In  response  to  this  appeal  Mr.  Tilden  sent  the  following 
letter : 

"GRAYSTONE,  June  30,  1886. 

fr  DEAR  MR.  JAMES  H.  MANNING  :  I  have  received  your 
note  asking  me  to  contribute  to  the  bi-centennial  number 
of  the  '  Argus.'  You  are  about  to  publish  something  con 
cerning  'the  old  city  of  Albany  and  the  days  I  spent  there.' 

"  I  was  in  Albany  between  nine  and  ten  months  of  the 
year  1846  as  a  member  of  the  Assembly,  and  member  of 
the  constitutional  convention  held  in  that  year ;  and  again 
most  of  the  summer  of  1867  as  a  member  of  the  constitu 
tional  convention  held  in  that  year ;  and  again  most  of  the 
winter  of  1872  as  a  member  of  the  Assembly ;  and  again  the 
two  years  of  1875  and  1876  as  Governor.  On  all  these 
occasions  life  in  Albany  was  characterized  by  the  polite 
and  liberal  hospitality  which  it  has  ever  maintained,  and 
which  I  have  sometimes  heard  ascribed  to  inheritance  from 
the  good  old  Dutch  customs  and  manners.  I  was  occasion 
ally  in  Albany  during  the  ten  years  preceding  1846,  so 
that  I  have  some  recollections  extending  back  at  least 
fifty  years. 


OLD    ALBANY  345 

"The  city  has  greatly  changed  during  that  time.  I  used 
often  to  walk  through  the  part  of  Albany  called  "The 
Colonie  "  to  see  the  old  Dutch  houses,  of  which  many  speci 
mens  then  existed.  Their  gables  fronted  on  the  street, 
the  edges  of  their  roofs  ascending  by  notches  like  saw-teeth, 
and  their  entrances  being  in  the  corner  through  doors  hori 
zontally  cut  into  two  parts. 

"  My  father  lived  in  New  Lebanon,  about  twenty-three 
miles  east  of  Albany,  and  was  in  frequent  communication 
and  correspondence  with  the  political  notabilities  of  Albany 
on  the  Democratic  side  from  the  days  of  Governor  Tonip- 
kins  to  more  recent  times. 

"  In  my  youth,  at  my  father's  house  I  saw  most  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Democratic  party  of  the  State  and  some  of 
the  leaders  of  the  nation. 

"  But  as  I  am  contributing  to  the  bi-centennial  number  of 
the  '  Argus,'  I  must  not  forget  the  journalists. 

"  I  distinctly  remember  seeing  at  my  father's  house  Solo 
mon  Southwick,  Jesse  Buel,  and  often  Edwin  Crosswell,  all 
famous  journalists  in  their  day. 

"  As  I  am  dictating  on  the  last  day  when  you  can  receive 
the  contribution  you  ask,  and  doing  it  in  great  haste,  I  will 
conclude  with  a  reminiscence  touching  a  part  of  Albany 
county,  which  went  for  independence  before  July  4, 
1776. 

"The  locality  in  which  I  was  born,  now  in  the  town  of 
New  Lebanon,  Columbia  county,  New  York,  was  at  the 
time  of  my  birth  embraced  in  the  town  of  Canaan,  which 
until  1788  was  a  part  of  '  Kings  District,'  —  a  subdivision 
created  in  1772,  —  of  the  county  of  Albany. 

"  The  people  of  Kings  District  before  and  during  the 
Revolution  acted  as  a  little  republic.  The  town  meeting 
was  its  organ. 

"  The  records  of  the  town  contain  the  following  proceed 
ings  :  '  At  a  meeting  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  county  of 
Albany,  legally  warned  by  the  committee  of  said  county  at 
the  house  of  William  Warner,  innkeeper,  in  said  district, 
on  Monday  the  24th  day  of  June,  1776,  for  the  purpose  of 
electing  twelve  delegates  to  represent  said  county  in  the 
Provincial  Congress,  be  voted  :  First,  that  Daniel  Buck  be 
moderator  of  this  meeting ;  second,  that  the  present  com 
mittee's  clerk  l)e  clerk  of  this  meeting ;  third,  that  the 
district's  books  be  delivered  to  the  care  of  said  committee's 


846  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

clerk  until  the  next  district  meeting ;  fourth,  that  a  com 
mittee  be  chosen  by  this  meeting  for  the  purpose  of  draw 
ing  up  instructions  for  a  new  form  of  government  to  be 
introduced  by  said  delegates. 

'  The  question  being  put,  whether  the  said  district  chooses 
to  have  the  United  American  colonies  independent  of  Great 
Britain,  voted  unanimously  in  the  affirmative.'  ('History  of 
Columbia  County,'  p.  322.) 

"Kings  District  was  mainly  settled  by  emigrants  from 
Connecticut,  and  its  settlers  fought  for  their  country  during 
the  Revolution  by  levies  en  masse. 

"  (  Signed)  S.  J.  TILDEN." 


CHAPTER  X 

Tilden's  last  days  —  The  books  he  read  —  His  death  —  Whittier's  elegiac 
verses  —  The  funeral  —  Mr>Tilden's  will  —  The  validity  of  the  Tilden 
will  contested  —  The  trustees  of  the  Tilden  Trust  purchase  a  half-in 
terest  in  the  estate  —  James  C.  Carter's  argument  —  Provision  made  by 
the  Legislature  and  afterwards  withdrawn  for  the  Tilden  Free  Library. 


the  winter  and  spring  of  1886  Mr.  Tilden's  in 
firmities  had  been  gaining  so  rapidly  upon  him  that  when 
the  warm  weather  arrived  he  was  capable  of  scarcely  more 
physical  exertion  than  an  infant.  He  could  not  endure  the 
jar  of  the  carriage  which  bore  him  to  his  yacht,  and  even 
went  so  far  as  to  have  plans  drawn  for  a  railway  from  his 
house  to  the  river  that  he  might  reach  his  yacht  without 
exertion.  He  had  a  carnage  made  expressly  with  extra 
springs  and  cushions  in  which  to  take  the  air  with  the  least 
possible  fatigue.  He  had  not  been  to  his  city  home  for 
many  months,  and  had  abandoned  all  expectation  of  see 
ing  it  or  the  city  again.  He  spent  most  of  his  waking  hours 
and  many  of  nearly  every  night  —  after  vainly  courting 
sleep  —  extended  upon  a  couch  reading,  or  rather  in  being 
read  to,  for  his  hands  had  long  ceased,  to  retain  sufficient 
prehensile  power  to  hold  a  volume,  nor  could  he,  without 
great  difficulty,  even  turn  its  leaves.  The  luxury  of  con 
versation  was  practically  denied  to  him,  for  his  articulation, 
for  many  months  never  rising  above  a  whisper,  had  become 
so  indistinct  that  none  but  those  in  pretty  constant  attend 
ance  upon  him  could  understand  much,  if  anything,  he  said. 
He  felt  this  privation  intensely,  for  it  compelled  him  to 
refuse  himself  to  many  visitors  whose  conversation  he  would 
have  greatly  enjoyed,  and  destroyed  much  of  the  pleasure 
he  felt  entitled  to  from  those  he  did  receive.  Thus  cut  off 
from  intercourse  with  the  living,  he  indemnified  himself  as 


348  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

well  as  he  could  by  cultivating  a  more  familiar  intercourse 
with  the  dead.  In  the  earlier  and  active  portions  of  his 
life  he  had  not  been  a  wide  reader.  He  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  educating  himself  and  fixing  his  opinions  more 
from  conversation  than  from  books.  But  as  his  infirmities 
grew  upon  him,  his  library  became  his  substitute  for  con 
versation  and  his  principal  resource.  He  devoured  books 
by  the  hecatomb,  as  much  to  distract  his  attention  from  his 
physical  troubles  as  to  increase  his  stock  of  knowledge. 
The  books  he  most  affected  were  of  a  biographical  and  his 
torical  character.  He  did  not  care  for  poetry,  nor  much 
for  fiction,  still  less  for  books  of  metaphysics  or  natural 
science.  During  the  last  six  or  seven  years  of  his  life, 
when  not  otherwise  engaged,  it  was  his  habit  to  have  John 
Cahill,  one  of  his  clerks,  or  Miss  Gould,  a  sister  of  his 
brother  Henry's  widow,  who  had  become  a  member  of  his 
family,  to  read  to  him  more  or  less  every  day,  and  not  un- 
frequently  at  night  after  he  had  retired.  Miss  Gould,  who 
kept  a  careful  list,  informs  me  that  she  herself  had  read  to 
him  during  the  last  four  years  of  his  life  the  contents  of 
eight  hundred  volumes,  besides  magazines  and  newspapers.1 
Though  not  a  book  collector  in  the  ordinary  sense,  Mr. 
Tilden  had  a  very  fastidious  taste  for  books,  which  he  in 
dulged  without  much  regard  to  expense.  His  library  num 
bered  some  fifteen  thousand  volumes .  Though  the  larger  part 
of  them  were  of  the  class  "  which  no  gentleman's  library  is 
complete  without,"  there  were  also  among  them  a  very  con 
siderable  number  of  the  most  rare  and  costly  publications 
of  the  world,  now  in  commerce.  He  bought  books  for  his 
immediate  use  and  enjoyment,  and  apparently  with  no 

1 1  am  indebted  to  Miss  Gould  for  a  list  of  these  books  and  a  note  ac 
companying  it,  which  will  be  found  in  Appendix  C.  Mr.  Cahill  informs 
me  that  he  read  to  Mr.  Tilden  a  number  of  books  not  noted  on  Miss  Gould's 
list,  among  which  he  remembers  Burns'  u  Prose  Writings,"  Irving's  u  Life  of 
Washington,"  which  greatly  interested  him,  and  Gibbon's  "  Decline  and  Fall 
of  the  Roman  Empire,"  for  the  style  of  which  he  frequently  expressed 
admiration. 


TILDEN'S   RARE   BOOKS  349 

thought  of  collecting  a  library  that  should  be  complete  in 
any  department,  —  always  excepting  his  law  library,  which 
was  one  of  the  most  complete  in  the  country  up  to  the  time 
of  his  withdrawal  from  the  active  practice  of  his  profession. 
His  illustrated  and  extra-illustrated  books,  upon  which  he 
lavished  money  without  stint,  would  add  distinction  to  any 
private  library  in  this  country,  perhaps  in  any  other.  He 
was  for  many  years  one  of  the  most  valuable  clients  of  M. 
3.  W.  Bouton,  an  accomplished  bibliopole  of  New  York, 
through  whom  he  purchased  the  greater  part  of  his  more 
rare  and  costly  works.1 

1  The  titles  of  some  of  these  acquisitions  will  give  the  reader  an  idea  of 
the  value  and  character  of  the  collection. 

1.  Baron  Taylor's  u  Voyages  Pittoresques  et  Romantiques  dans  1'An- 
cienne  France."  The  copy  is  complete  and  perfect  in  every  respect, 
and  comprises  27  large  folio  volumes,  containing  about  5,000  plates 
executed  in  lithography  after  original  sketches  by  the  best  artists  of 
France.  All  the  great  buildings  and  monuments  of  the  different  depart 
ments  of  France  are  represented  here,  with  details  and  sections.  Much  of 
the  text  is  printed  with  elaborate  ornamental  borders  adorned  with  medal 
lion  portraits  of  celebrated  personages,  arms  and  armor,  figures,  views,  etc. 
Baron  Taylor,  who  projected  this  work,  was  the  man  who  brought  the  obe 
lisk  of  Luxor  from  Egypt  to  Paris  and  erected  it  on  the  Place  de  la  Con 
corde.  He  was  also  for  many  years  at  the  head  of  the  Theatre  Fran9ais. 
The  publication  was  commenced  in  1820,  and  continued  through  the  ensuing 
years  till  its  completion  in  1878.  It  was  issued  to  subscribers  in  parts,  of 
which  there  were  in  all  1,000,  at  twelve  and  a  half  francs  apiece,  making  the 
price  of  the  whole  12,500  francs.  The  complete  sets  of  this  work  in  this 
country  can  be  counted  on  one  man's  fingers,  very  few  of  the  original  sub 
scribers  having  outlived  the  six  decades  taken  for  its  publication,  and  but 
few  of  the  original  subscription  sets  have  ever  been  offered  for  sale. 

2.  Piranesi's  works  illustrating  the  antiquities,  monuments,  architecture, 
etc.,  of  the  Romans.     This  splendid  set,  comprising  35  volumes,  is  bound 
in  23  large  folio  volumes,  containing  nearly  a  thousand  large  etched  plates. 
Some  of  the  folding  plates  open  out  ten  feet  in  length. 

3.  Gillray's  ''Drawings  and  Caricatures,"  nearly  if  not  quite  the  only 
complete  collection  in  existence.     It  comprises  a  series  of  831  caricatures, 
all  original  issues  and  the  larger  portion  in  colors,  156  original  drawings, 
19  miscellaneous  engravings,  and  4  autograph  letters  ;  the  whole  in  8  folio 
volumes,  sumptuously  bound  in  crimson  morocco  by  Riviere.     Upwards  of 
250  of  the  subjects  have  never  been  catalogued  or  indexed  in  any  work. 
The  collection  was  formed  by  an  English  gentleman  who  spent  five  years  in 
its  formation.     In  1866  he  obtained  the  collection  of  Gillray's  belonging  to 


350  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

One  of  his  few  subsidiary  .diversions  during  the  winter 
of  1885-86  was  the  compilation  of  the  genealogical  notes 
of  the  Tilden  family,  to  which  reference  is  made  in  the 
early  part  of  this  work.  It  was  the  fruit  of  considerable 
labor,  covering,  as  it  did,  the  history  of  a  family  life  on  two 
continents,  and  a  period  of  over  three  centuries.  It  was 
finished  during  the  week  in  which  he  died.  Not  to  speak 
of  the  considerable  expense  necessarily  incurred  for  the 
printed  and  manuscript  records  which  had  to  be  acquired 
and  consulted,  these  notes  are  another  striking  illustration 
of  the  thoroughness  with  which  he  executed  everything  he 
undertook,  and  which  no  degree  of  physical  weakness  could 

the  Marquis  of  Bath,  and  subsequently  added  to  it  that  of  Lord  Farnham 
and  another  private  collection.  To  these  three  collections  were  added  from 
time  to  time,  as  opportunity  offered,  many  other  rare  prints.  Gillray's  are 
among  the  scarcest  of  autographs.  There  are  four  in  this  collection. 

4.  Audubon's  "  Birds,"  the  great  folio  edition.     This  was  bought  of  Mr. 
Bouton  from  the  family  of  one  of  the  original  subscribers,  in  the  original 
parts,  unbound.     It  contains  435  very  large  copper-plates,  colored  by  hand, 
including  about  1,000  figures  of  birds,  from  drawings  made  by  Audubon 
from  nature  during  many  years'  sojourn  in  the  wilds  of  America.     The  set 
was  then  bound  to  order  for  Mr.  Tilden  in  half  morocco,  uncut  edges,  and 
is  unquestionably  one  of  the  finest  copies  in  existence.     The  plate  depict 
ing  the   turkey,    which  Dr.  Franklin  recommended  instead   of  the  eagle 
as    our   national  emblem,    one   of  the   largest  in  the  work,    and  usually 
found  with  half  the  head  cut  off,  is  in  this  copy  perfect. 

5.  Audubon's   "Quadrupeds,"  3  volumes,  folio,  also  an  original  sub 
scriber's  copy,  and  bound  to  order  for  Mr.  Tilden  from  the  original  parts. 
This  is  almost  equal  in  rarity  to  the  "  Birds."     It  consists  of  150  very  large 
and  beautifully  colored  engravings,  depicting  the  animals  mostly  in  their 
natural  sizes,  male  and  female,  with  their  young,  prey,  and  views  of  their 
favorite  haunts  and  localities.     This  collection  also  contains  a  copy  of  the 
original  octavo  edition  of  Audubon's  u  Birds,"  in  seven  volumes,  together 
with  the  three  volumes  octavo  of   "Quadrupeds"  issued  by  Audubon  in 
conjunction  with  Dr.  Bachman. 

G.  The  first  folio  "Shakespeare"  (London,  1G23),  bound  in  full  red 
morocco  extra  by  De  Coverley. 

7.  The  second  folio    "Shakespeare"    (London,  1632),  also   bound  in 
full  morocco  by  De  Coverley. 

8.  A   fine   copy  of  the   third   folio    "Shakespeare"    (London,  1GG4), 
handsomely  bound  in  full  red  morocco  extra  by  Francis  Bedford. 

9.  A  set  of  Ashbee's  "Facsimiles"  of  the  Shakespeare  quartos,  traced 


HIS   LAST    WORK  351 

ever  make  him  relax.  He  now  rarely  saw  strangers.  He 
had  long  ceased  to  join  his  family  at  table,  taking  his  meals 
alone  in  his  library.  Requiring  to  be  fed  by  an  attendant, 
he  naturally  was  averse  to  having  witnesses  to  the  cere 
mony.  He  had  lost  almost  entirely  the  use  of  one  arm ; 
he  rarely  walked  alone  more  than  four  or  five  rods  at  a 
time,  and  then  with  a  shuffling  gait  which  betrayed  an  im 
paired  control  of  his  lower  limbs. 

I  visited  Graystoneon  the  17th  of  July,  1886,  and  spent 
the  Sabbath  with  him.  We  rode  out  together  in  the  after 
noon.  I  had  to  do  most  of  the  talking,  for  the  effort  to 
make  himself  intelligible  was  painful  and  rarely  successful. 

letter  by  letter  from  original  copies  to  ensure  accuracy,  —  something  -which 
it  is  asserted  has  not  been  altogether  secured  in  the  Grigg's  u  Photolitho 
graphic  Facsimiles  "  more  recently  published.  Of  this  series  there  were 
but  50  sets,  and  of  these  sets  19  were  destroyed,  only  31  sets  being  pre 
served  as  satisfactory  in  every  respect.  Each  copy  is  certified  to  by  the 
signatures  of  E.  W.  Ashbee  and  J.  O.  Halliwell. 

10.  A  copy  of  Halliwell's  "  Shakespeare,"  in  16  folio  volumes,  contain 
ing  in  addition  to  the  great  playwright's  works  the  literary  sources' to  which 
the  great  dramatist  was  supposed  to  be  under  obligation,  each  play  being 
accompanied  by  useful  literary  and  antiquarian  illustrations,  copious  philo 
logical  notes,  complete  reprints  of  all  novels,  tales,  or  dramas  on  which  it 
is  founded,  including  many  other  documents  of  a  strictly  illustrative  charac 
ter.     There  are  besides  numerous  wood  engravings  and  facsimiles.     But 
150  copies  were  printed. 

11.  Purchas'  "  Pilgrims,"  5  volumes,  folio;  a  fine  tall  copy  of  this  old 
collection  of  voyages,  dated  1625,  the  best  edition,  clean  and  perfect,  with 
a  fine  impression  of  the  rare  frontispiece,  and  good  margins.     Mr.  Tiklen 
had  also   previously  obtained   a  copy  of  the   second   edition  of  the  first 
volume  of  Purchas,  printed  in  1614. 

12.  An  early  copy  of  Dr.  Robertson's  u  Historical  Works,"  large  paper, 
12  volumes,  quarto,  in  contemporary  old  red  morocco,  with  a  large  number 
of  rare  old  prints  inserted,  and  most  of  which  at  this  day  it  would  be  diffi 
cult,  if  not  impossible,  to  duplicate.    This  is  one  of  the  earliest  specimens  of 
extra  illustrations. 

13.  "  Hudibras,"  the  best  edition,  edited  by  Dr.   Nash,   3   volumes, 
quarto,  large  paper,  with  India  proof  of  the  plates,  numerous  extra  plates 
inserted,  substantially  bound  in  full  red  morocco. 

14.  A  magnificent  copy  of  u  Cromwelliana,"  the  folio  volume  extended 
and  inlaid  to  5  volumes,  imperial  folio,  and  about  1,000  extra  portraits  and 
engravings   inserted,   many  of  which  are   of    extreme   rarity,   including, 


Of    THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


352  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

He  frequently  called  my  attention  to  the  scenery,  for  he 
had  a  lively  sensibility  for  the  beauties  of  nature.  I  had 
recently  returned  from  Philadelphia,  where  I  had  been 
inspecting  the  collection  of  Franklin  manuscripts  in  the 
Pennsylvania  Historical  Society  for  a  new  edition  of  the 
works  of  Franklin,  upon  which  I  was  engaged.  We  dis 
cussed  a  scheme,  to  which  he  had  already  given  some 
attention,  for  procuring  copies  of  valuable  manuscripts  for 
his  library.  Before  we  separated  on  Monday  he  said  that 
if  I  would  organize  such  a  work  he  would  not  mind  the 
expense  of  it.  I  promised  him  when  I  returned  to  town 
with  my  family  to  discuss  the  matter  further  with  him. 

among  others,  an  extraordinary  assemblage  of  portraits  of  Cromwell,  of 
his  family,  of  Charles  I.,  and  of  James  I.  and  James  II. 

15.  A   sumptuous  copy  of   Mrs.   Bray's  "  Life   of  Thomas  Stothard, 
R.A."   (her  father),  the  little  quarto  inlaid  to  folio  size  and  extended  to 
3  volumes  by  the  insertion  of  several  hundred  plates,  handsomely  bound  in 
full  red  morocco  extra. 

16.  A  copy  of  Thompson's  u  Seasons,"  Bentley's  fine  edition  in  large 
type,  imperial  folio,    with  exquisite  engravings   by  Bertolozzi,  full  green 
morocco.     This  copy  has  a  large  number  of  extra  plates  inserted. 

17.  A  collection  of  caricatures  got  together  by  Horace  Walpole,  com 
prising  137  plates  of  Gillray  and  others,  relating  to  Walpole  and  his  times, 
bound  in  full  blue  morocco,  elephant  folio  in  size. 

18.  A  select   collection  of  humorous   caricatures  of   a  miscellaneous 
character  collected  by  Thomas  McLean,  comprising  several  hundred  large 
plates  colored  by  hand ;    unique.     Elephant  folio,  bound  in  full  morocco. 

19.  A  copy  of  the  first  edition  of  Milton's  "  Paradise  Lost,"  small  quarto, 
calf,  gilt,  London,  1669.     It  is  a  perfect  copy,  with  what  Lowndes  terms  a 
seventh  title-page.     This  copy  formerly  belonged  to  Blakeway,  the  histo 
rian  of  Shrewsbury,  and  bears1  his  autograph. 

20.  A  copy  of  the  third  edition  (1678)  of  tl  Paradise  Lost,"  bound  up 
with  a  copy  of  the  first  edition  of  u  Paradise  Regained  "  (1680). 

21.  A  small  quarto  volume  of  Milton's  "  Plagiarisms,"  a  highly  inter 
esting  volume,  containing  Lauder's  two  tracts  on  Milton's   "  Plagiarisms," 
1650-51;  Dr.  Douglass'  u  Expose  of  Lauder,"  1756;  Lauder's  u  Recantation 
and  Confession"  (drawn  up  by  Dr.  Johnson),  with  an  original  autograph 
letter  of  Lauder  to  Dr.  Mead   (never  published),  two  original  autograph 
letters  of  Salmasius,  portraits,  etc.     The  volume  came  from  the  library  of 
Mr.  Dillon.     An  account  of  this  controversy  is  to  be  found  in  Boswell's 
u  Johnson." 

22.  The  Milton  u  Memorial,"  consisting  of  a  collection  of  early  tracts, 


MEMORIES    OF   ALBANY  353 

On  Monday  morning  before  I  left  he  read  me  the  fol 
lowing  letter  which  he  had  been  writing  in  reply  to  an 
invitation  to  attend  the  celebration  of  the  two  hundredth 
anniversary  of  the  granting  of  a  charter  to  the  city  of 
Albany : 

TILDEN    TO    THE    ALBANY    RECEPTION     COMMITTEE. 

"GRAYSTOXE,  YOXKEKS,  N.  Y.,  July  19,  1886. 

"  GENTLEMEN  :  I  have  to  thank  you  for  your  invitation 
to  assist  in  commemorating  the  two  hundredth  anniver 
sary  of  the  granting  of  a  charter  to  the  city  of  Albany. 

"I  regret  that  I  cannot  be  personally  present  at  cere 
monies  so  worthy  of  your  ancient  and  renowned  munici 
pality. 

proof  portraits  of  Milton,  with  autograph  letters  of  his  various  editions, 
etc. 

23.  An   elaborately   illustrated   copy  of  Keysler's    u  Travels   through 
Germany,"  etc.,  the  4  volumes,  quarto,  extended  to  8  thick  volumes,  royal 
folio,  2,000  rare  and  curious  plates,  portraits,  views,  maps,  etc.,  and  bound 
in  half  Russia,  uncut  edges. 

24.  A  superb  set  of  the  Abbotsford  edition  of  the  Waverley  novels,  the 
12  royal  octavo  volumes  extended  to  44  by  the  insertion  of  several  thousand 
fine   plates   illustrative  of   these  works,  and  several  autograph  letters  of 
Scott,  Lockhart,  and  other  contemporary  notabilities.     The  copy  was  illus 
trated  by  a  gentleman  of  wealth  and  taste  for  his  own  amusement,  and  oc 
cupied  his  leisure  hours  for  many  years.     Sudden  business  reverses  forced 
him  to  sell,  and  Mr.  Bouton  became  its  purchaser.     From  him  it  passed 
into  Mr.  Tilden's  collection.     The  set  is  probably  the  richest  and  finest  ever 
made.     The  44  volumes  are  handsomely  bound  in  dark-blue  crushed  levant 
morocco,  elegantly  tooled,  by  Mathews. 

25.  The  Boydell  edition  of  Milton's  works,  3  volumes,  folio,  extended 
to  8  volumes  by  the  addition  of  several  thousand  engravings,  handsomely 
bound  in  morocco  extra  by  R.  W.  Smith.     This  set  is  without  doubt  the 
most  elaborately  extra-illustrated  copy  of  Milton's  works  in  the  world. 

26.  Doran's  "Annals  of  the  Stage,"  a  large-paper  copy  of  Middleton's 
handsome  edition  in  2  volumes,  imperial  octavo,  extended  to  4  volumes  by 
the  addition  of  portraits  of  celebrated  actors  and  actresses.     The  volumes 
are  handsomely  bound  in  dark-blue  morocco  by  Mathews. 

27.  Moore's   "  Life,  Letters,  and  Journals  of  Lord  Byron,"  2  volumes, 
quarto,  extended  to  4  by  the  insertion  of  choice  plates. 

28.  Bos  well's  "  Johnson,"  Murray's  royal  octavo  edition,  extended  to  6 
volumes  by  the  addition  of  a  profusion  of  beautiful  engravings  illustrating 
the  life  and  time  of  the  famous  lexicographer. 

29.  u  Wulpoliana,"  in  5  volumes,  folio,  bound  in  half  red  morocco,  with 

VOL.  IF.  — 23 


354  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TIL  DEN 

"Albany  is  a  historic  city,  and  has  long  occupied  a 
prominent  place  in  the  annals  of  the  State  and  nation.  It 
was  the  scene  of  the  early  struggles  which  determined 
whether  the  colonization  of  the  vast  country  tributary  to  it 
should  be  of  a  Dutch  or  English  type. 

"  Albany  formed  a  centre  of  the  great  natural  highways, 
connecting  on  the  south  by  the  majestic  and  placid  Hudson 
with  the  Atlantic  ocean  ;  on  the  north  by  Lake  Champlain 
with  the  wraters  of  the  St.  Lawrence ;  and  on  the  west  by 
the  great  plateau  that  stretches  to  Lake  Erie.  It  thus 
became  the  objective  point  in  military  operations  during 
the  protracted  contests  for  supremacy  upon  this  continent 
between  England  and  France,  and  afterwards  between 
England  and  the  rising  Republic  of  the  United  States. 

a  large  number  of   portraits,    views,  facsimiles,  etc.,  relating  to  Horace 
Walpole  and  his  contemporaries. 

30.  The  old  quarto  edition  of    "  Hudibras,"  edited  by  Dr.  Nash,  of 
which  but  200  copies  were  printed,  extended  from  3  to  6  volumes  by  the 
addition  of  a  host  of  fine  engravings  extracted  from  other  editions. 

31.  Duyckinck's  u  Cyclopaedia  of  American  Literature,"  the  large-paper 
edition  printed  on  a  hand  press  by  William  Alvord,  with  special  view  to  the 
needs  of  extra  illustrators,  and  increased  in  thickness  as  much  again  by 
the  insertion  of  portraits,  views,  etc.,  of  celebrated  authors,  and  localities 
connected  with  them. 

32.  The   New  Testament  (in  French),  issued  by  Hachette  &  Co.,   of 
Paris,  illustrated  by  a  series  of    beautiful   etchings   done  by  Bida  after 
sketches  made  by  himself  in  the  Holy  Land,  in  2  volumes  folio. 

33.  "  Musee  Napoleon,"  in  11  volumes,  quarto,  a  large-paper   copy, 
with  proofs  before  letters,  with  the  scarce  supplementary  volume,  which  is 
uniform  in  size,  and  not  inlaid  as  is  usually  the  case.    This  fine  work  is  the 
only  one  containing  reproductions  of  all  the  pictures  selected  and  appro 
priated  by  Napoleon  from  the  principal  art  galleries  of  Europe,  and  trans 
ferred  to  Paris,  where  they  were  engraved  by  his  command. 

34.  Layard's  "  Monuments  of  Nineveh,"  comprising  170  large  and  curi 
ous  outlines,  tinted  plates,  on  large  paper,  both  series,  in  2  imperial  folio 
volumes,  bound  in  half  morocco. 

35.  "II  Vaticano,"  by  Pistolesi,  8  volumes,  large  folio,  containing  over 
800  fine  outline  engravings. 

36.  "  Rejected  Addresses,"  fourth  edition,  inlaid,  folio  size,  and  extra 
illustrated,  and  bound  in  maroon  morocco. 

37.  Mathias'  "Pursuits  of  Literature,"  1812,  a  copy  on  largest  paper, 
with  about  100  fine  portraits  of  celebrities  inserted,  folio,  half  morocco. 

38.  Ticknor's  "Life  of  Prescott,"  quarto,  186G,  large  paper,  extended 
to  3  volumes  by  the  addition  of  engravings. 


MEMORIES    OF  ALBANY  355 

"The  same  geographical  configuration  which  caused  it  to 
be  a  strategical  point  of  such  importance  made  it  after 
wards  the  gateway  of  a  continental  commerce. 

"  It  was  Albany  which,  twenty  years  before  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  was  the  seat  of  the  first  conference 
looking  to  the  formation  of  a  union  between  what  after 
wards  became  the  independent  States  of  America. 

"  It  is  eminently  fit  that  by  such  a  celebration  as  you 
propose,  the  momentous  events  with  which  Albany  has 
been  associated  should  be  kept  in  the  memory  of  the  pres 
ent  generation  and  of  posterity. 

"S.    J.   TlLDEN. 

"  To  Robert  Lenox  Banks,  James  H.  Manning,  John  C. 
Xott,  Lewis  Boss,  Archibald  McClure,  Samuel  B.  Town- 
er,  William  Bayard  Van  Eensselaer,  Augustus  Whitman, 
John  Zimmerman,  James  Otis  Woodward, 

"  Reception  Committee" 

39.  Parton's   "  Life  of  Franklin,"  2  volumes,  imperial   octavo,  large 
paper,  extended  to  4  by  the  insertion  of  plates,  bound  in  green  morocco. 

40.  Hogarth's  "  Engravings,"  in  3  volumes,  folio,  containing  a  fine  early 
impression  of  the  plates. 

41.  A  choice  collection  of  "  Cruikshankiana,"  formed  by  a  friend  of 
Cruikshank  who  enjoyed  unusual  opportunities  for  collecting  in  this  line. 
It  forms  6  volumes,  folio,  bound  in  half  morocco. 

42.  A  large-paper  copy  of  a  beautiful  edition  of  u  Don  Quixote,"  printed 
throughout  on  Whatman  paper,  with  etchings  by  Lalauze,  in  three  states, 
of  which  but  50  copies  were  printed,  published  by  William  Patterson,  of 
Edinburgh,  in  1879.     This  is  the  handsomest  edition  of  this  celebrated  book 
yet  published. 

43.  Charles  Blanc's  "  Catalogue  of  Rembrandt's  Etchings,"  last  edition ; 
one  of  the  20  copies  printed  on  Whatman  paper,  with  the  plates  in  three 
states. 

44.  Maximilian's  u  Travels  in  the  Interior  of  North  America,"  a  folio 
volume,  containing  80  fine  tinted  plates  after   original   drawings,  with  a 
quarto  volume  of  text  in  English. 

45.  A  proof  edition  of  u  L'Art,"  printed  on  Holland  paper,  with  dupli 
cate   proofs   on  Japanese   paper,    from  its   commencement  in    1875,   the 
etchings  being  of  the  best  French  artists.     There  were  4  volumes  to  the 
year,  folio  size,  each  year  containing  52  full-page  etchings.     Thanks  to 
Mr.  Bouton,  Mr.  Tilden  was  one  of  the  early  subscribers  to  this  precious 
publication. 

4G.  A  proof  copy  of  the  u  Musee  Fran9aise,"  in  5  volumes,  folio,  with 
about  400  fine,  large  copper-plate  engravings  of  the  masterpieces  of  the 


356  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

When  I  took  leave  of  him  he  showed  unusual  emotion, 
and  expressed  some  disappointment.  He  spoke  of  several 
things  of  which  he  would  like  to  talk  with  me  when  I 
returned.  Had  not  my  duty  to  my  family  imperatively 
required  it,  I  should  not  then  have  left  him. 

Just  two  weeks  and  two  days  from  the  day  we  parted  at 
Graystone,  and  on  the  4th  of  August,  I  received  the  follow 
ing  telegram  from  Mr.  G.  "W.  Smith,  his  secretary : 

"Mr.  Tilden  died  this  morning  at  8." 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Tilden  had  been  an  invalid 

great  painters,  the  finest  collection  of  pictures  ever  got  together;  a  pres 
entation  copy  to  one  of  Napoleon's  marshals. 

47.  The  "  Musee  Borbonico,"  in  16  quarto  volumes,  containing  about 
1,000  beautiful  engravings  of  ancient  paintings,  statuary,  bas-reliefs,  vases, 
etc.,  representing  the  remains  of  ancient  art  unearthed  at  Pompeii,  Hercu- 
laneum,  etc. 

48.  "  Dramatic    Biographies,"    24   volumes,    octavo,    with   numerous 
plates  inserted. 

49.  u  Oratory  and  Gesture,"  by  J.  Sheridan  Knowles,  privately  printed 
for  the  late  James  McHenry,  by  whom  it  was  presented  to  Mr.  Tilden.     It 
is  an  imperial  quarto,  bound  in  red  crimped  morocco  by  Riviere.     The  date 
is  1873. 

50.  "  Actors  and  Actresses,"  a  magnificent  volume,  enriched  with  the 
choicest  portraits  in  the  finest  possible  state,  nearly  all  open-letter  or  India- 
proof  impressions,  collected,  without  regard  to  expense,    by  Sir   Charles 
Price.     The  volume  is  superbly  bound  in  full  morroco  by  Hayday. 

51.  Pilkington's  "  Dictionary  of  Engravers,"  old  edition,  1805,  a  unique 
copy,  copiously  illustrated  with  many  hundred  fine  and  rare  prints,  etchings, 
original  drawings,  etc.,  bound  in  pale  old  Russia,  the  2  volumes,  quarto, 
extended  to  4. 

52.  A  remarkable  collection  of  books  of  scenery,  33  volumes,  quarto, 
1816-1835,  issued  in  parts  by  subscription,  illustrated  with  fine  engravings 
on  steel. 

53.  A  large-paper  copy  of  Lodge's  u  Portraits,"  12  volumes  bound  in 
6,  quarto,  India  proofs  of  the  portraits,  bound  in  full  morocco. 

54.  Pickering's  beautiful  edition  of  "  Isaac  Walton,"  1836,  edited  by 
Sir  Harris  Nicolas,  with  fine  steel  engravings,  India-proof  copy;  also  a  copy 
of  Zouch's  u  Life  of  Walton,"  1823,  large  paper,  with  some  extra  plates  in 
serted,  mostly  India  proof,  quarto,  bound  in  green  morocco  extra  by  Chaselin. 

55.  A  remarkable  collection  of  works  on  u  Folk  Lore,"  46  volumes  in 
all,  including  many  works  now  rare. 


HIS   DEATH  357 

for  many  years,  and  his  death  at  any  moment  not  improba 
ble,  the  intelligence  was  a  surprise  and  a  shock  to  the 
nation.  So  long  a  time  had  elapsed  since  his  physical 
infirmities  had  become  notorious,  that  they  had  come  to  be 
regarded  as  one  of  the  conditions  of  life  with  him.  Besides, 
his  feebleness,  which  was  physical  only,  was  not  apparent 
to  the  public,  while  his  unimpaired  intellectual  activity 
and  his  active  solicitude  about  public  affairs  gave  no  pre 
monitions  of  decay. 

His  death  was  equally  unexpected  by  his  physicians,  two 
of  whom  were  present  at  his  bedside  when  his  great  spirit 
went  its  way.  As  soon  as  the  news  reached  the  city,  the 

56.  Speeches  of  celebrated  parliamentary  orators,  in  all  49  volumes. 

57.  Jesse's  works,  in  23  volumes,  handsomely  bound  in  tree  calf. 

58.  The  works  of  Charles  Dickens,  printed  at  the  Riverside  press,  large 
paper,  the  handsomest  edition  ever  printed  in  this  country. 

59.  Large-paper  copies  of  Massinger's   ''Dramatic  Works,"  in  4  vol 
umes,  1813;    of   Middleton's    "Dramatic   Works,"  in   5   volumes,    1840; 
and  of  Ford's  u  Dramatic  Works,"  in  3  volumes,  1869. 

60.  Owen  Jones'  "  Grammar  of  Ornament,"  the  fine  folio  edition  of 
1856,  containing  100  superb  colored  plates. 

61.  A  large-paper  set  of  the  "  Galerie  de  Versailles,"  in  19  imperial 
folio  volumes,  illustrating  the  history  of   France   to  the   time  of   Louis 
Philippe. 

62.  The    "Florence   Gallery,"  4  volumes,  folio,  1739;  proofs  before 
letters  of  the  superb  plates. 

63.  The  "Galerie  du  Palais  Royal,"  3  volumes,  folio,  half  morocco, 
containing  355  copper-plate  engravings  of  the  pictures  of  the  celebrated 
collection  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans. 

64.  A  colored  copy  of  the  "  Stafford  Gallery,"  4  volumes,  imperial  folio, 
bound  in  full  red  morocco. 

65.  Finden's  u  Royal  Gallery,"  India  proofs  of  the  plates,  folio,  full 
morocco. 

66.  A  large-paper  copy  of  the  u  Turner  Gallery,"  containing  60  exquisite 
engravings  on  steel  of  the  masterpiece  of  England's  greatest  painter. 

67.  A  proof  copy  of  the  u  Logia  of  Raphael,"  imperial  folio,  Meulo- 
mester,  half  red  morocco. 

68.  u  Tableaux  Historiques,"   original  issue,  3   volumes,    royal   folio, 
red  morocco. 

69.  One  volume  of  the  personal-expense  accounts  of  President  Jeffer- 
gon,  a  detailed  description  of  which  appeared  in  the  "  Century  Magazine  "  a 
few  years  prior  to  Mr.  Tilden's  death. 


358  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

flags  on  all  the  public  buildings  and  most  of  the  newspaper 
offices  were  displayed  at  half-mast.  Governor  Hill  promptly 
issued  a  proclamation  in  which,  among  other  things,  he 
said  : 

"  The  country  loses  one  of  its  ablest  statesmen  and  the 
State  of  New  York  one  of  its  foremost  citizens.  He  was 
twice  a  representative  in  the  State  Legislature,  a  member 
of  two  constitutional  conventions,  Governor  of  the  State 
for  two  years,  and  in  1876  was  the  candidate  of  one  of  the 
greater  parties  of  the  country  for  the  presidency,  and  re 
ceived  therefor  the  electoral  vote  of  his  native  State,  and 
upon  the  popular  vote  was  declared  the  choice  of  a  majority 
of  the  voters  of  the  United  States.  As  a  private  citizen 
and  in  every  public  station  he  was  pure  and  upright,  and 
discharged  every  trust  with  conspicuous  fidelity.  His  last 
public  utterance,  which  attracted  universal  attention,  exhib 
ited  the  same  spirit  of  unselfish  patriotism  which  character 
ized  his  whole  career,  and  was  in  behalf  of  strengthening 
the  defences  of  his  country  that  he  loved  so  well."  . 

The  Governor  then  ordered  the  flags  upon  the  capitol 
and  upon  all  the  public  buildings  of  the  State,  including 
arsenals  of  the  national  guard,  to  be  displayed  at  half-mast 
until  and  including  the  day  of  the  funeral,  and  the  citizens 
of  the  State,  for  a  like  period,  were  requested  to  unite  in 
appropriate  tokens  of  respect. 

President  Cleveland  telegraphed  to  the  family  his  "  indi 
vidual  sorrow  in  an  event  by  which  the  State  of  New  York 
had  lost  her  most  distinguished  son,  and  the  nation  one  of 
its  wisest  and  most  patriotic  counsellors." 

The  funeral  was  solemnized  at  Graystone,  on  the  7th  of 
August,  and  the  same  day  the  remains  of  the  deceased 
statesman  were  conveyed  to  New  Lebanon,  where,  after  a 
supplementary  funeral  service  in  the  Presbyterian  church 
of  that  village,  they  were  interred  near  those  of  his  deceased 
kindred. 

Whittier,  the  poet,  found  in  Mr.  Tilden's  death  a  theme 
for  the  following  noble  lines  : 


THE   READING    OF  HIS    WILL  359 

"  Once  more,  O  all-adjusting  Death, 

The  nation's  Pantheon  opens  wide ; 
Once  more  a  common  sorrow  saith, 
•  A  strong,  wise  man  has  died.' 

"JTaults  doubtless  had  he.     Had  we  not 

Our  own,  to  question  and  asperse 
The  worth  we  doubted  or  forgot 
Until  we  stood  beside  his  hearse? 

"  Ambitious,  cautious,  yet  the  man 

To  strike  down  fraud  with  resolute  hand ; 
A  patriot,  if  a  partisan, 
He  loved  his  native  land. 

"  So  let  the  mourning  bells  be  rung, 

The  banner  droop  its  folds  half-way, 
And  let  the  public  pen  and  tongue 
Their  fitting  tribute  pay. 

"  Then  let  us  vow  above  his  bier 
To  set  our  feet  on  party  lies, 
And  wound  no  more  a  living  ear 
With  words  that  death  denies." 

On  the  Monday  following  the  funeral  Mr.  Tilden's  will, 
which  had  been  executed  on  the  23d  of  April,  1884,  was 
opened  and  read  in  the  presence  of  the  heirs  and  the  exec 
utors,  by  James  C.  Carter,  Esq.,  of  the  law  firm  of  Carter 
and  Ledyard,  and  it  was  admitted  to  probate  by  the  Sur 
rogate  of  Westehester  county,  in  October  of  the  year  1886. 

The  testator,  never  having  married,  had  no  direct  de 
scendants.  His  surviving  next  of  kin  consisted  of  his  sister, 
Mrs.  Mary  B.  Pelton,  and  the  two  sons  and  four  daughters 
of  his  brother  Henry.  His  estate  consisted  chiefly  of  per 
sonal  property ;  about  one-tenth  in  houses  and  lands,  and 
another  tenth  in  iron  mines  in  New  York  and  Michigan. 
The  estate  was  appraised  by  experts  at  a  little  over  five 
millions.  Of  this  about  one  million  was  appropriated  to 
legacies  and  to  the  constitution  of  trust  funds  for  relatives 
and  other  beneficiaries.  His  will  provided  for  the  estab 
lishment  of  free  libraries  at  New  Lebanon  and  Yonkers,  at 
a  cost  of  somewhat  beyond  $100,000  ;  and  set  apart  $10,000 
for  "  keeping  in  repairs,  improving,  and  adorning  the  ceme 
tery  in  the  town  of  New  Lebanon." 


360  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

The  substantial  residue  of  his  estate,  amounting  to  about 
$4,000,000,  he  disposed  of  as  follows  : l 

"  XXXV.  I  request  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to 
obtain  as  speedily  as  possible  from  the  Legislature,  an  Act  of 
Incorporation  of  an  institution  to  be  known  as  the  Tilden 
Trust,  with  capacity  to  establish  and  maintain  a  Free  Library 
and  Reading-Boom  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  to  promote 
such  scientific  and  educational  objects  as  my  said  Executors 
and  Trustees  may  more  particularly  designate.  Such  cor 
poration  shall  have  not  less  than  five  Trustees,  with  power 
to  fill  vacancies  in  their  number,  and  in  case  said  institu 
tion  shall  be  incorporated  in  a  form  and  manner  satisfactory 
to  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  during  the  lifetime  of 
the  survivor  of  the  two  lives  in  being  upon  which  the 
Trust  of  my  general  estate  herein  created  is  limited,  to 
wit :  the  lives  of  Euby  S.  Tilden  and  Susie  Whittlesey, 
I  hereby  authorize  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to 
organize  the  said  corporation,  designate  the  first  Trustees 
thereof,  and  to  convey  to  or  apply  to  the  use  of  the  same, 
the  rest,  residue,  and  remainder  of  all  my  real  and  personal 
estate  not  specifically  disposed  of  by  this  instrument,  or  so 
much  thereof  as  they  may  deem  expedient,  but  subject 
nevertheless  to  the  special  Trusts  herein  directed  to  be  con 
stituted  for  particular  persons,  and  to  the  obligations  to 
make  and  keep  good  the  said  special  Trusts,  provided  that 
the  said  corporation  shall  be  authorized  by  law  to  assume 
such  obligation.  But  in  case  such  institution  shall  not  be 
so  incorporated,  during  the  lifetime  of  the  survivor  of  the 
said  Ruby  S.  Tilden  and  Susie  Whittlesey,  or  if  for  any 
cause  or  reason  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  shall  deem 
it  inexpedient  to  convey  said  rest,  residue,  and  remainder 
or  any  part  thereof,  or  to  apply  the  same  or  any  part  thereof 
to  the  said  institution,  I  authorize  my  said  Executors  and 
Trustees  to  apply  the  rest,  residue,  and  remainder  of  my 
property,  real  and  personal,  after  making  good  the  said 
special  Trusts  herein  directed  to  be  constituted,  or  such 
portions  thereof  as  they  may  not  deem  it  expedient  to 
apply  to  its  use,  to  such  charitable,  educational,  and  scien 
tific  purposes  as  in  the  judgment  of  my  said  Executors 
and  Trustees  will  render  the  said  rest,  residue,  and  re- 

1  For  a  copy  of  the  will,  see  Appendix  D. 


THE    TILDEN    TRUST  361 

mainder  of   my  property  most  widely  and   substantially 
beneficial  to  the  interests  of  mankind." 

The  executors  and  trustees  named  in  the  will  were  John 
Bigelow,  Andrew  H.  Green,  and  George  W.  Smith.  In 
pursuance  of  the  directions  contained  in  the  foregoing 
clause  the  executors  applied  to  the  Legislature  of  the  State 
of  New  York  for  an  act  of  incorporation  of  an  institution 
to  be  known  as  the  Tilden  Trust,  and  on  the  26th  day  of 
March,  1877,  the  Legislature  passed  "  an  act  to  incorporate 
the  Tilden  Trust  for  the  establishment  and  maintenance  of 
a  Free  Library  and  Reading-Room  in  the  city  of  New 
York."  l 

In  pursuance  of  the  terms  of  their  charter  the  executors 
"designated  and  appointed  in  writing  "  Alexander  E.  Orr 
and  Stephen  A.  Walker  as  the  two  other  trustees  of  such 
corporation,  on  the  26th  day  of  April,  1887. 2 

The  establishment  of  a  free  library  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  with  an  endowment  of  between  three  and  four  mil 
lions  of  dollars,  was  regarded  as  a  most  becoming  crown 
to  a  life  of  which  so  large  a  portion  had  been  consecrated 
to  public  uses. 

The  hopes,  however,  which  had  been  awakened  through 
out  the  nation  by  the  publication  of  the  will,  were  destined 
to  be  only  partially  realized.  The  nephews  of  Mr.  Tilden, 
who  were  largely  in  debt,  were  pressed  by  their  creditors 
to  contest  the  validity  of  the  above-cited  thirty-fifth  clause 
of  the  will,  and  proceedings  were  instituted  for  that  pur 
pose  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  New  York  on  the  very  day 
the  will  was  admitted  to  probate.  The  ground  taken  by 
Messrs.  Vanderpool,  Green,  and  Cuniing,  of  counsel  for 
the  heirs,  was  that  the  thirty-fifth  clause  was  invalid  for 
indefiniteness  of  subject,  in  failing  to  specify  with  suffi- 

1  Appendix  E. 

2  On  the  25th  day  of  April,  1893,  Lewis  Cass  Ledyard  was  elected  as  a 
trustee  of  the  Tilden  Trust,  to  fill  the  vacancy  occasioned  by  the  decease 
of  Mr.  Walker. 


362  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

cient  precision  the  portions  of  that  residuary  estate  to  be 
appropriated  to  the  several  objects  of  his  bounty.  The 
case  carne  on  for  trial  before  Justice  Lawrence  at  special 
term, — Joseph  H.  Choate  and  Delos  McCurdy,  of  counsel 
for  the  heirs ;  and  James  C.  Carter,  Lewis  Cass  Ledyard, 
and  Daniel  Rollins,  of  counsel  for  the  executors, — in 
November,  1888. 

At  the  January  special  term  of  the  Supreme  Court  in 
1889  Mr.  Justice  Lawrence  rendered  a  decision  sustain 
ing  the  validity  of  the  contested  clause.  The  plaintiffs 
appealed  to  the  general  term  of  the  Supreme  Court,  where 
Chief- Justice  Van  Brunt  and  Associate- Justices  Brady  and 
Daniels  reversed  the  decision  of  Judge  Lawrence  by  a 
vote  of  two.  to  one ;  Judge  Daniels  voting  and  writing  an 
opinion  in  defence  of  it,  and  Judges  Van  Brunt  and  Brady 
writing  opinions  for  reversal.1  Judge  Brady's  opinion 
is  so  unique  a  specimen  of  juridical  literature,  that  no  one 
will  think  the  space  it  will  occupy  in  these  pages  dispro- 
portioned  to  its  value. 

"  The  questions  discussed  by  the  presiding  justice  and 
Justice  Daniels  are  not  free  from  difficulty  or  doubt,  but  I 
think,  on  authority  and  proper  judicial  interpretation,  the 
solution  of  them  by  the  presiding  justice  is  the  most 
acceptable.  I  concur  with  him,  therefore."2 

The  case  was  taken  to  the  Court  of  Appeals,  where  it 
came  on  for  argument  before  the  second  division,  consist 
ing  of  seven  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  temporarily 

1  The  opinion  of  Judge  Van  Brunt,  who  at  this  time  had  become  chief  jus 
tice,  lends  a  melancholy  interest  to  the  circumstance  that  it  was  at  the  special 
instance  and  request  of  Aaron  J.  Vanderpool,  of  the  firm  of  Vanderpool, 
Green,  &  Cuming,  the  counsel  for  the  contestants  of  the  will,  that  Judge 
Van  Brunt,  while  a  judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas,  was  detailed  by 
Governor  Tilden  to  act  as  a  supplementary  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  in 
1874,  a  detail  which  was  continued  for  six  out  of   the  eight  succeeding 
years,  when  he  was  elected  one  of  the  justices  of  that  court. 

2  It  was  this  opinion,  perhaps,  which  inspired  the  wags  of  the  bar  to 
exclaim,  when  Judge  Brady  entered  the  court-room  : 

"  Lo,  the  con-curring  hero  comes  !  " 


THE    TILDEN    TRUST   DECLARED    INVALID       363 

designated  by  Governor  Hill,  to  assist  the  appellate  court 
in  disposing  of  business  in  arrear.  It  was  argued  by 
Carter  and  Rollins  for  the  appellants,  and  by  Choate  and 
McCurdy  for  the  heirs,  at  the  June  term  in  1891. 

Mr.  Carter's  argument  closed  with  the  following  impres 
sive  appeal : 

"  Now,  then,  if  your  Honors  please,  I  have  gone  over, 
so  far  as  I  have  had  strength,  the  principal  grounds  upon 
which  the  validity  of  this  devise  has  been  contested.  They 
are,  to  my  mind,  unsubstantial  in  the  extreme.  Nothing 
but  the  circumstance,  that  it  seems  to  be  impossible  nowa 
days  for  a  man  to  make  any  considerable  disposition  of 
property  outside  of  the  range  of  those  who  claim  to  be 
kindred  by  blood ;  nothing  but  the  disposition  to  question 
bequests  given  to  publio  objects,  to  take  the  chances  of 
litigation,  because  so  many  of  those  contests  have  been 
successful ;  nothing,  I  say,  but  this  practice,  which  has 
become  too  universal,  would  have  ever  induced  any  one  to 
question  the  simple  provisions  of  this  will.  If  I  could 
persuade  myself  that  this  munificent  bequest  of  Governor 
Tilden,  this  beneficent  design  so  constantly  associated  with 
his  thoughts  in  the  closing  years  of  his  life,  —  stood  in  any 
sort  of  hazard,  I  should  be  affected  with  the  deepest  anxiety. 
The  idea  that  a  man  cannot,  when  he  comes  to  step  from 
this  mortal  scene,  or  make  his  preparations  for  stepping 
from  it,  look  about  him  and  see  what  he  can  do  with  the  wealth 
which  fortune  has  been  pleased  to  grant  him  ;  that  he  cannot 
do  that  without  apprehension  that  somebody  who  has  some 
connection  with  him,  near  or  remote,  by  blood,  will  come 
into  a  court  of  justice  and  defeat  all  his  beneficent  intentions, 
is  to  me  a  circumstance  of  a  most  melancholy  nature.  And 
that  these  people  who  contest  this  will,  of  all  others,  should 
be  permitted  to  grasp  this  property ;  no  near  relations  of 
the  testator  ;  with  no  near  ties,  either  of  blood  or  affection  ; 
living  upon  his  bounty  while  he  was  alive ;  taking  a  mil 
lion  from  him  when  he  died ;  and  all  without  a  word  of 
gratitude.  And  even  then  they  would  not  let  him  rear 
that  monument  to  his  name,  which  was  the  dearest  wish 
of  his  closing  hours.  I  take  it  that  there  is  to  be  no 
decision  here  which  will  prevent,  I  am  glad  to  believe  that 
there  is  no  doctrine  of  law  which  prevents,  the  full  accom- 


364  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

plishment  of  his  benevolent  purpose.  I  rejoice  to  believe 
that  he  will  be  permitted  to  crown  a  life  of  usefulness, 
although  a  life  of  contention  which  excited  many  animos 
ities,  with  an  act  of  beneficence  as  to  which  none  of  his 
fellow-citizens  would  feel  any  other  sentiment  than  praise 
and  applause." 

On  the  28th  of  October  the  Court  of  Appeals  sustained 
the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  bane,  holding  that  the 
thirty-fifth  clause  of  the  will  was  invalid,  and  that  all  the 
residuary  estate  covered  by  that  clause  vested  in  the  heirs- 
at-law  on  the  death  of  the  testator,  Judge  Brown  writing 
the  opinion  of  the  court,  in  which  Chief-Judge  Follet  and 
Judges  Haight  and  Parker  concurred.  Judge  Bradley 
wrote  an  opinion  sustaining  the  validity  of  the  thirty-fifth 
clause,  in  which  Judges  Potter  and  Vann  concurred. 

In  his  opinion  Judge  Brown  rested  the  decision  of  the 
court  upon  a  point  which  had  not  been  taken  by  the  counsel 
for  the  heirs,  and  which,  therefore,  the  counsel  for  the 
appellants  had  had  no  occasion  to  discuss.  As  that  ground 
was  deemed  entirely  indefensible  by  Mr.  Carter;  as  the 
case  had  been  decided,  not  by  the  regular  judges  of  the 
Court  of  Appeals,  but  by  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court 
set  apart  by  the  Governor  temporarily  to  hear  appeals  ;  as 
two  of  the  judges  in  the  courts  below  were  for  sustaining 
the  will,  and  two  for  invalidating  the  thirty-fifth  clause  ;  and 
as  three  of  the  members  of  the  court  above  were  in  favor  of 
sustaining  the  will  to  four  against  it ;  in  other  wrords,  as  the 
case  in  the  three  hearings  had  been  heard  only  by  Supreme 
Court  judges,  five  of  which  were  for  sustaining  the  will  and 
only  six  opposed,  Mr.  Carter  felt  that  he  was  entitled  to  an 
opportunity  of  rearguing  the  case  for  the  purpose  of  dis 
cussing  the  new  point  raised  by  Mr.  Justice  Brown.  In 
this  view  the  executors  and  the  trustees  of  the  Tilden  Trust 
concurred. 

This  motion,  than  which  none  could  have  been  more 
reasonable,  if  a  reargument  is  ever  reasonable  in  any  case, 


APPLICATION  FOR  EEARGUMENT  DENIED      365 

—  and  though  not  frequent  there  is  no  lack  of  precedents 
for  them,  — the  court  promptly  denied,  the  same  members 
voting  against  the  reargument  as  had  voted  to  invalidate 
the  thirty-fifth  clause,  and  those  who  had  voted  to  sustain 
the  will,  with  the  exception  of  Judge  Potter,  who  had  ceased 
to  be  a  member  of  the  court,  voting  in  favor  of  a  reargu 
ment. 

Whatever  may  be  the  merits  or  the  demerits  of  the  deci 
sion  of  the  court  or  of  the  opinion  of  Judge  Brown,  the 
majority  of  that  body  laid  itself  open  to  just  criticism  for 
refusing  the  application  of  Mr.  Carter.  It  may  be  reason 
ably  questioned  whether  any  decision  of  a  bench  of  seven 
judges  ought  to  stand  that  is  reached  by  a  majority  of  only 
one.  There  are  only  two  conditions  upon  which  such  a 
result  can  occur :  either  the  members  of  the  court  do  not 
equally  comprehend  the  questions  upon  which  their  opin 
ions  are  divided,  or  some  members  of  the  court  are  yield 
ing  to  influences  which  are  extra-judicial.  For  centuries 
the  English-speaking  people  have  required  a  unanimous 
verdict  from  their  juries  of  twelve  men  sitting  in  judgment 
on  questions  of  fact;  and  when  the  twelve  do  not  agree,  the 
presiding  judge  may,  in  his  discretion,  send  them  back  to 
the  jury-room  for  further  deliberation  to  secure  unanimity. 
It  is  assumed  that  with  further  discussion  and  reflection 
their  comprehension  of  the  question  at  issue  will  be  equal 
ized.  If  this  policy,  so  venerable  and  so  cherished  wher 
ever  it  has  prevailed,  is  a  sound  one,  why  should  it  not 
have  its  weight  with  a  bench  of  judges  ?  why  should  not  the 
majority  be  required  to  convince  at  least  a  considerable 
proportion  of  the  minority,  or  be  convinced  by  them  ?  Can 
any  case  be  deemed  to  have  been  fully  discussed  by  counsel 
or  adequately  considered  by  a  court  of  seven  judges,  all 
having  precisely  the  same  law  to  apply,  precisely  the  same 
state  of  facts  to  apply  the  law  to,  and  presumably  the  same 
degree  of  concern  to  interpret  that  law  correctly,  when 
three  members  of  the  court,  after  only  a  single  hearing  of 


366  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

counsel,  take  views  precisely  the  opposite  of  those  enter 
tained  by  the  other  four  ?  There  is  no  attribute  or  function 
of  the  judiciary  more  important  than  its  ability  to  inspire 
the  public  with  respect  for  its  decisions.  But  it  is  idle  to 
expect  that  a  court  of  seven  judges  can  retain  the  respect 
of  the  public  which  declines  an  application  to  review  a 
decision  reached  by  the  meagre  majority  of  one  upon 
grounds  not  raised,  and  therefore,  of  course,  not  discussed, 
by  counsel  on  either  side. 

To  those  who  are  skilled  in  interpreting  the  mystic  prop 
erties  of  numbers,  I  commend  the  problem  presented  by 
the  prominent  part  which  the  number  one  has  played  in  the 
career  of  Mr.  Tilden. 

At  the  election  of  1876  it  was  conceded  that  he  lacked 
but  one  disputed  electoral  vote  to  make  him  President. 

When  the  Electoral  Commission  was  appointed  to  count 
the  electoral  vote,  every  vital  question  raised  during  the 
deliberations  of  the  commission  was  decided  by  a  vote  of 
eight  to  seven,  or  one  majority. 

When  the  count  of  the  electoral  vote  was  made  final, 
Rutherford  B.  Hayes  was  declared  elected,  and  as  a  conse 
quence  Samuel  J.  Tilden  declared  to  have  been  defeated 
on  an  electoral  vote  of  185  to  184,  or  by  a  majority  of  one. 

At  the  special  term  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  clause  of 
the  will  by  which  he  disposed  of  about  a  third  of  his  large 
estate  was  sustained  by  one  judge.  On  appeal  to  the  Su 
preme  Court  in  bane,  that  disposition  was  declared  invalid  by 
a  majority  of  one.  On  the  appeal  to  the  court  of  last  resort, 
their  decision  was  confirmed  again  by  a  majority  of  one  ;  and 
finally  a  reargument  was  refused  by  the  same  vote  as  that 
which  had  pronounced  the  thirty-fifth  clause  invalid ;  and 
all  these  decisions  in  the  face  of  a  provision  in  the  will  re 
voking  any  devise  or  legacy  made  in  it  to  any  one  who 
should  institute  any  proceedings  to  invalidate  its  provisions. 

Though  by  the  decision  of  the  Court  of  Appeals  none  of 
Mr.  Tilden's  estate  could  be  claimed  by  his  trustees  for  the 


APPLICATION   FOR    REARGUMENT   DENIED      367 

great  library  which  he  had  so  much  at  heart,  measures  were 
taken  by  the  trustees  of  the  Tilden  Trust,  by  which  they 
may  reasonably  expect  to  acccomplish  in  a  satisfactory  way, 
if  not  to  the  extent  contemplated  by  Mr.  Tilden,  the  mu 
nificent  purpose  to  which  he  had  tried  to  consecrate  the 
bulk  of  his  fortune.  In  view  of  the  uncertainties,  expense, 
and  delays  incident  to  litigation  of  this  character,  the  ex 
ecutors  of  Mr.  Tilden  and  the  trustees  of  the  Tilden  Trust 
deemed  it  prudent,  shortly  before  the  final  argument  in  the 
Court  of  Appeals,  and  about  six  months  before  its  decision 
was  rendered,  to  accept  the  terms  of  a  settlement  proffered 
by  Mrs.  Laura  P.  Hazard,  a  grand-niece  of  Mr.  Tilden, 
who  was  a  party  to  the  suit  for  the  invalidation  of  the  will, 
and  who  upon  the  death  of  her  grandmother,  Mr.  Tilden's 
sister,  and  under  her  will  became  entitled  to  one-half  of  all 
that  part  of  the  estate  that  had  been  intended  for  the  Tilden 
Trust. 

During  the  five  and  a  half  years  occupied  by  this  liti 
gation,  the  executors,  by  judicious  investments  and  rein 
vestments,  and  by  careful  attention  to  doubtful  assets,  were 
fortunate  enough,  not  only  to  protect  the  estate  from  any 
losses,  but  to  add  to  it  about  two  millions  in  income  and 
profit,  so  that  at  the  time  of  the  settlement  with  the  heirs 
in  March,  1892,  the  general  estate,  apart  from  the  special 
trusts,  legacies,  etc.,  already  referred  to,  had  increased 
from  four  millions  to  six  millions  of  dollars,  one-half  of 
which,  under  the  arrangement  with  Mrs.  Hazard,  came  to 
the  Tilden  Trust,  less  the  sum  of  $975,000,  which  she  re 
ceived  for  her  interest  while  it  was  yet  subject  to  the  risks 
of  litigation.  Of  the  personal  estate  something  over  five 
and  a  half  millions  were  distributed  in  March,  1892.  The 
real  estate  is  still  undivided. 

On  the  16th  of  November,  1886,  a  few  weeks  after  the 
probate  of  the  will,  Mr.  L.  V.  F.  Randolph,  who  had 
been  for  many  years  a  director  and  treasurer  of  the  Illi 
nois  Central  Railroad,  was  appointed  the  secretary  of  the 


368  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

executors  and  trustees  under  the  will,  to  the  duties  of 
which  position  were  subsequently  added  those  of  secretary 
to  the  Tilden  Trust.1 

On  the  23d  day  of  January,  1893,  the  trustees  of  the 
Tilden  Trust,  learning  that  it  was  contemplated  by  the 
municipal  government  of  New  York  city  to  remove  the  old 
city  hall  to  make  place  for  a  larger  and  more  commo 
dious  edifice  on  its  site,  addressed  the  following  commu 
nication  to  the  Municipal  Building  Committee : 

"THE  TILDEN  TRUST. 
"15  GRAMERCY  PARK,  Jan.  23,  1893. 

"  GENTLEMEN  :  On  the  22d  day  of  October  last  I  had 
the  honor  to  submit  to  the  Mayor  and  commonalty  of  the 
city  of  New  York,  on  behalf  of  the  trustees  of  the  Tilden 
Trust,  a  communication,  of  which  the  annexed  is  a  copy, 
and  to  which  your  attention  is  respectfully  invited. 

"  It  is  now  rumored  that  legislation  is  in  contemplation 
for  the  removal  of  the  reservoir  from  Bryant  park,  and 
also  for  the  removal  of  the  old  city  hall  to  make  place 
for  more  spacious  and  adequate  accommodations  for  the 
municipal  offices.  Much  as  we  regret  the  necessity  of 
disturbing  a  structure  consecrated  to  us  like  our  city  hall 
by  so  many  precious  historical  and  forensic  associations, 
should  such  a  necessity  be  found  to  exist,  we  respectfully 
suggest  that  that  admirable  structure  be  transferred  to  the 
site  now  occupied  by  the  reservoir  in  Bryant  park  and  ap 
propriated  to  the  uses  of  the  Tilden  Trust  upon  the 
conditions  set  forth  in  the  annexed  communication. 

"  By  order  of  the  Trustees  of  the  Tilden  Trust, 

"  JOHN  BIGELOW, 

"President." 

The  following  is  a  copy  of  the  letter  of  October  22, 
referred  to  in  the  foregoing  communication : 

1 1  feel  it  to  be  a  duty,  as  it  certainly  is  a  pleasure,  for  me  here  to  make  a 
public  acknowledgment  of  his  invaluable  services  in  both  capacities,  and 
formally  to  recognize  the  very  substantial  obligations  under  which  his 
varied  accomplishments  as  a  business  manager,  his  indefatigable  assiduity, 
and  his  high  personal  character  have  placed  all  who  are  or  may  hereafter  be 
in  any  way  interested  in  this  estate. 


+£*?** 

'     4a»  *^"* 


THE    PROPOSED    Til 

On  the  site  of  the  Reservoii 


- 


TRUST   LIBRARY. 

ween  40th  and  42d  Streets. 


THE    TILDEN    TRUST   LIBRARY  369 

"(COPY.) 

"OFFICE  OF  THE  TILDEN  TRUST. 
"  15  GRAMERCY  PARK,  N.Y.,  Oct.  22,  1893. 
"  To  the  Mayor,  Aldermen,  and  Commonalty  of  the  City  of 
New  York: 

"  The  trustees  of  the  Tilden  Trust,  incorporated  by 
chapter  85  of  the  Laws  of  the  State  of  New  York,  passed 
the  21st  of  March,  1887,  respectfully  represent, 

"That  the  late  Samuel  J.  Tilden  having,  in  his  will,  a 
copy  of  which  is  hereunto  annexed,  made  provisions  for  his 
heirs-at-law  and  certain  legatees,  sought,  by  the  thirty-fifth 
article  of  said  instrument,  to  consecrate  the  remainder  of 
his  estate  to  the  creation  of  an  institution  to  be  known  as 
the  Tilden  Trust,  with  capacity  to  establish  and  maintain  a 
free  library  and  reading-room  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and 
'to  promote  such  scientific  and  educational  objects  as  his 
executors  and  trustees  might  more  particularly  designate.' 

"  That  the  validity  of  the  thirty-fifth  clause  of  said  will 
was  successfully  contested  by  the  heirs-at-law  of  the  testa 
tor  and  pronounced  invalid.  Pending  such  litigation,  and  in 
view  of  the  uncertainties,  expense,  and  delays  incident  to 
litigation  of  this  character,  the  trustees  of  the  Tilden  Trust 
deemed  it  prudent,  prior  to  the  argument  of  the  case, in  the 
Court  of  Appeals,  to  accept  the  terms  of  a  settlement  prof 
fered  by  one  of  the  parties  contesting  said  will,  in  virtue 
of  which  the  Tilden  Trust  became  possessed  of  about  one- 
third  of  that  part  of  the  estate  that  had  been  intended  by 
the  testator  for  such  trust,  from  which  they  expect  to 
realize  from  two  to  two  and  a  quarter  millions  of  dollars, 
the  annual  income  from  which  may  be  moderately  esti 
mated  at  $80,000. 

tr  That  the  trustees  of  the  Tilden  Trust  are  anxious  to 
apply  this  fund  in  the  way  that  shall  prove  most  advanta 
geous  to  the  people  of  the  city  of  New  York,  and  at  the 
same  time  most  strictly  conform  to  the  wishes  and  expec 
tations  of  the  testator  as  manifested  in  his  will. 

"  That  the  income  of  this  trust  is  insufficient  to  provide 
suitable  buildings  for  the  accommodation  of  such  a  library 
as  was  contemplated  by  the  testator,  and  in  addition  to 
equip  and  operate  it,  but  quite  sufficient,  in  their  judgment, 
to  equip  and  operate  it  if  suitable  accommodations  for  its 
installation  are  provided  from  other  sources. 

VOL.  II. -24 


370  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

"  In  view  of  these  facts,  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
city  of  New  York  is  not  only  more  destitute  of  library 
accommodation  than  any  other  city  of  its  size  in  the  world, 
but  more  destitute  than  many  cities  in  our  own  country  of 
far  less  wealth  and  population,  the  undersigned,  trustees 
of  the  Tilden  Trust,  respectfully  invite  your  honorable  bodies 
to  consider  the  propriety  of  availing  yourselves  of  this 
opportunity  of  establishing  a  library  commensurate  with 
the  magnitude  and  importance  of  our  commercial  metrop 
olis,  and  of  taking  measures  to  provide  for  it  the  requisite 
accommodations,  with  the  understanding,  to  which  the 
trustees  of  the  Tilden  Trust  hereby  avow  their  readiness 
to  become  parties,  that  they  will  equip  and  operate  such 
library  so  soon  as  such  accommodations  can  be  provided. 

"  By  order  of  the  Trustees  of  the  Tilden  Trust, 

"  JOHN  BIGELOW, 

"  President. 
-OCT.  22,  1892." 

On  the  2d  of  May,  1893,  Governor  Flower  approved  an 
act  passed  by  the  Legislature  authorizing  the  Commissioners 
of  Public  Works,  on  the  request  of  the  Commissioners  of 
Public  Buildings,  to  cause  the  old  city  hall  "to  be  removed, 
reerected,  furnished,  and  equipped  else  where  upon  property 
therein,  belonging  to  the  Mayor,  Aldermen,  and  Commonalty 
of  the  city  of  New  York,  with  the  consent  of  the  Depart 
ment  of  Public  Parks,  if  such  property  shall  be  subject  to 
the  jurisdiction  of  such  department.  If  said  building  shall 
be  removed  and  reerected,  the  same  shall  be  done  in  such 
manner  as  said  Board  of  Commissioners  shall  determine, 
with  alterations  as  may  in  their  judgment  be  rendered 
necessary  by  the  site  selected  and  the  purpose  to  which 
such  reerected  building  shall  be  devoted,  and  as  may  be 
in  harmony  with  the  present  general  architectural  features 
of  the  exterior  of  said  building." 

On  the  same  day  the  Governor  approved  of  an  act  au 
thorizing  the  Department  of  Public  Works,  with  the  sanc 
tion  of  the  Board  of  Estimate  and  Apportionment,  to  remove 
the  reservoir  from  Bryant  park. 


DISAPPOINTMENTS  371 

On  the  same  day  the  Governor  also  approved  of  an  act 
which  authorized  the  Department  of  Public  Parks  '  <  to  con 
tract  with  the  Tilden  Trust  for  its  use  and  occupation  of 
any  building  that  may  be  hereafter  erected  in  pursuance 
of  law  upon  lands  belonging  to  the  Mayor,  Aldermen,  and 
Commonalty  of  the  city  of  New  York  between  Fortieth  and 
Forty-second  streets  and  between  Fifth  and  Sixth  avenues 
in  said  city,  and  establishing  and  maintaining  therein  a  free 
library,  and  carrying  out  the  objects  and  purposes  of  said 
corporation." 

It  was  hoped  and  expected  that  these  measures  would 
result  in  soon  giving  to  the  commercial  metropolis  of  the 
United  States  a  library  commensurate  with  its  magnitude, 
needs,  and  resources,  and  thus  fitly  commemorate  its  obliga 
tions  to  one  of  its  most  eminent  citizens  and  generous  ben 
efactors.  That  prospect,  unhappily,  has  been  indefinitely 
postponed  by  the  repeal  of  the  act  authorizing  the  removal 
of  the  old  city  hall.1  In  what  way,  if  any,  the  municipal 
government  will  give  effect  to  the  disposition  it  manifested 
in  1893  to  provide  a  suitable  structure  for  the  Tilden 
library  neither  the  trustees  nor  the  public  have  as  yet 
any  intimation. 

1  Laws  of  1891. 


CHAPTER    XI 

CONCLUSION 

I  HAVE  said  that  Mr.  Tilden  never  married.  I  may  say 
further  of  him  what  Milton  wrote  on  the  decease  of  his 
most  cherished  friend  Diodati : 

"  Thy  blush  was  maiden,  and  thy  3routh,  the  taste 
Of  wedded  bliss  knew  never ;  pure  and  chaste 
The  honors,  therefore,  by  divine  decree 
The  lot  of  virgin  worth,  are  given  to  thee." 

On  two  separate  occasions  I  received  from  Mr.  Tilden 
the  assurance  that  he  had  never  had  any  acquaintance  or 
relations  with  the  female  sex,  of  which  he  would  have  hesi 
tated,  from  motives  of  delicacy,  to  speak  with  his  mother  or 
his  sisters.  As  Jules  Simon  said  of  an  illustrious  French 
cdlibataire: 

"  II  n'y  a  pas  de  femmes  dans  sa  vie. 
II  reste  cette  grand  lacune  dans  son  coeur  et  dans  son  talent." 

That  Mr.  Tilden's  life  would  have  been  more  peaceful 
and  fuller  of  joys  had  he  married,  that  the  affectionate  side 
of  his  nature  would  have  been  more  developed  and  his  per 
sonality  more  generally  attractive,  there  is  reason  to  pre 
sume  ;  but  that  he  would  have  been  so  creat  a  force  in  the 

O 

world  as  he  ultimately  became,  or  that  his  life  would  have 
been  so  prolonged,  may  be  doubted. 

The  ancients,  not  without  reason,  made  Venus  not  only 
their  god  of  love,  but  their  presiding  deity  at  funerals 
also,  under  the  name  of  Libertina.  The  exceptional  lon 
gevity  of  some  of  the  famous  anchorites  has  been  attributed 
in  a  large  degree,  and  no  doubt  correctly,  to  their  conti- 


EFFECTS    OF    CELIBACY  373 

nence,  "  whereby  their  whole  vigor  was  consecrated  to  self- 
maintenance  instead  of  being  expended  in  two  directions." 
The  pigeon,  says  Lord  Bacon,  lives  only  eight  years,  while 
the  chaste  turtle-dove  reaches  twenty  and  even  fifty  years. 
The  mule  is  much  longer-lived  than  the  horse  or  the  ass. 
The  nightingale  that  has  young  annually,  rarely  lives  more 
than  six  or  eight  years,  while  the  celibataires  live  on  for 
twenty  or  more.  It  is  a  well-ascertained  fact  that  hybrid 
plants  live  longer  than  their  parents.  To  be  sure 

"  It  is  not  all  of  life  to  live 
Nor  all  of  death  to  die ;  " 

but  a  nature  so  keenly  sensible  to  any  genuine  tenderness, 
and  physically  so  dependent  from  infancy  upon  others, 
could  have  well  afforded  to  surrender  a  few  of  the  later 
years  of  his  life  —  during  three  of  which  he  once  told  me 
that  he  did  not  remember  to  have  had  a  single  pleasurable 
emotion  —  for  the  love  of  a  sensible  woman  and  the  sooth 
ing  influences  of  a  cheerful  domestic  fireside. 

The  following  distich  inscribed  over  a  statue  of  Love  is  as 
full  of  wisdom  as  of  wit : 

"  Qui  que  tu  sois,  voici  ton  maitre 
11  Test,  le  fiit  ou  le  doit  etre."  * 

Tilden's  vital  forces,  which,  in  spite  of  his  unrelenting 
valetudinarianism,  were  prodigious,  and  which  should  have 
been  perpetuated  in  a  family,  were  husbanded  to  the  last, 
and  as  in  the  case  of  the  poet  Pope,  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  the 
philosopher,  and  especially  of  some  of  the  famous  ascetics 
of  the  Christian  church,  like  St.  Anthony,  Theodosius  the 
cenobite,  and  St.  Paul  the  anchorite,  who  lived  over  a  cen 
tury,  seemed  all  to  have  been  derived  to  the  brain  and  to 
have  induced  a  cerebral  activity  and  vigor  of  which  the 

1  "  Whoe'er  you  are,  your  master  see 
Who  is,  has  been,  or  ought  to  be." 


374  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

Tilden  family  tree,  so  far  as  it  is  now  possible  to  trace  it, 
had  produced  no  other  example.  That  he  often  thought  of 
marrying,  that  he  had  no  aversion  to  matrimony,  and  that 
he  never  had  any  relations  with  the  other  sex  which  might 
interfere  with  the  most  solemn  engagements  which  a  man 
can  contract  with  it;  no  one  who  knew  him  well  could 
entertain  a  doubt. 

Nor  was  he  in  the  least  degree  shy  or  lacking  of  ease  in 
the  presence  of  the  fair  sex.  Though  reared  in  an  obscure 
village  among  plain  people,  he  never  at  any  period  of  his 
life  betrayed  any  of  that  awkward  shyness  so  common  with 
persons  unaccustomed  to  the  usages  of  polite  society,  nor 
was  there  ever  a  time  since  he  was  of  age  that  he  would 
have  felt  the  least  embarrassment  in  the  presence  of  any  man 
or  woman,  whatever  their  rank. 

Like  England's  great  cardinal, 

"Though  from  humble  stock,  undoubtedly 
He  was  fashioned  to  honor  from  the  cradle." 

Tilden  never  married,  only  because  he  never  felt  the  need 
of  a  wife.  His  health  was  always  so  uncertain ;  his  mind 
from  youth  upward  was  so  constantly  absorbed  Avith  large 
aifairs,  public  or  private,  most  of  the  time  with  both ;  his 
temperament  was  so  purely  nervous,  and  women  were,  so 
far  as  he  could  see,  so  unimportant  to  his  success  in  any  of 
the  enterprises  upon  which  his  heart  was  set,  that  marriage 
never  became  the  subject  of  leading  interest,  as  it  does,  for 
a  time  at  least,  with  most  men  whether  they  marry  or  not. 
In  fact,  he  never  knew  any  woman  intimately  enough  to 
fall  completely  under  the  influence  of  sexual  charms.  He 
seemed  to  have  been  betrothed  in  early  life  to  his  country, 
and  the  Democratic  party  occupied  with  him  the  place  of 
offspring,  until  it  wras  too  late  to  think  of  having  any 
other.1 

1  In  this  respect  Tilden's  experience  is  not  without  illustrious  precedents. 
Dulembert,  in  his  eulogy  of  Bossuet,  the  Bishop  of  Meaux,  discountenances 


HIS    CELIBACY  375 

He  was  as  far  as  possible  from  sharing  the  cynical  notion 
of  woman  proclaimed  by  St.  Chrysostom,  that  she  was  a 
"  necessary  evil,  a  natural  temptation,  a  desirable  calamity, 
a  domestic  peril,  a  deadly  fascination,  and  a  painted  devil ;  " 
though  he  might  perhaps  have  agreed  with  the  lover  of 
Eve,  that  she,  as  the  type  of  her  sex,  w^as 

"  Fair  no  doubt  and  worthy  well 
His  cherishing,  his  honoring,  and  his  love, 
Not  his  subjection." 

Had  he  been  elected  to  the  presidency  in  1876,  Mr.  Til- 
den  would  probably  have  contracted  a  matrimonial  alliance, 
more,  however,  for  the  better  discharge  of  the  duties  of  his 
station  than  to  fill  any  void  in  his  own  scheme  of  life.  Had 
he  in  his  prime  married  a  sensible  woman,  capable  of  ap 
preciating  his  refinement  of  nature,  he  would  have  made  a 
devoted  husband  and  father,  though  he  would  have  laid  a 
very  different  and  probably  much  less  costly  sacrifice  upon 
the  altar  of  his  country. 

Mr.  Tilden  had  no  pronounced  taste  for  any  of  the  fine 
arts,  nor  did  it  appear  that  they  ever  exerted  much  influ 
ence  upon  his  work  or  his  life.  He  never  appeared  to  care 
much  for  music ;  he  never  learned  to  dance ;  when  his 
fortune  permitted  him  to  indulge  in  luxuries  he  went 
occasionally  to  the  play  and  the  opera,  but  rather  to  gratify 
others  than  for  the  pleasure  he  expected  to  derive  from  the 
entertainment.  Even  in  his  school-days  his  pleasures  were 
all  intellectual.  He  never  participated  in  the  athletic  games 
in  which  his  comrades  delighted.  I  doubt  if  he  was  ever 
seen  to  walk  or  run  very  fast.  As  an  antidote  to  dyspepsia 
in  middle  life  he  got  in  the  way  of  riding  on  horseback,  but 
he  never  learned  how  to  ride  or  drive,  and  those  who  drove 

the  rumor  that  that  prelate  had  been  secretly  married,  on  the  ground  that  he 
had  been  too  much  occupied  with  controversies,  absorbed  with  theological 
speculations,  etc.,  to  be  forced  to  have  recourse  to  such  consolations  as  are 
to  be  found  in  a  mutual  union  of  tender  and  peaceful  souls.  //  avait plus 
besoin  du  combat  que  de  societe  domestique,  et  de  gloire  que  d1  attachments. 


376  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

with  him,  while  he  held  the  reins,  were  apt  to  breathe  more 
freely  when  they  found  themselves,  if  they  did,  safely  set 
down  again  at  their  homes.  He  liked  to  get  his  exercise 
by  riding  or  driving  because  his  horses  did  most  of  the 
work.  He  always  had  fine  horses.  For  one  span  he  paid 
$10,000;  for  one  of  his  saddle-horses  he  paid  $1,500,  and 
$1,000  for  another.  He  was  but  partially  acquainted  with 
the  uses  of  which  hands  were  capable  and  for  which  they 
were  provided.  He  probably  never  whittled  a  stick,  tossed 
a  ball,  climbed  a  tree,  ran  a  race,  or  pulled  an  oar,  nor 
even  carried  a  cane,  except  for  a  few  days  in  Paris  under 
the  advice  of  his  physician  as  a  check  to  certain  arthritic 
tendencies.  He  could  not  be  prevailed  upon,  however,  to 
continue  its  use.  He  enjoyed  massage  because  it  gave  him 
exercise  without  exertion. 

When  he  established  himself  at  Graystone  he  surprised 
his  friends  by  the  interest  he  exhibited  and  the  money  he 
lavished  in  adding  to  its  attractions.  He  expended  some 
$75,000  in  the  construction  of  glass  houses,  which  he 
stocked  with  rare  and  the  costliest  growths  of  many  climes, 
besides  compelling  them  to  supply  his  table  with  the  choicest 
fruits  without  much  reference  to  seasons  or  climate.  He 
expended  about  $13,000  in  stocking  these  houses  alone. 
For  a  single  plant  indigenous  to  Mexico  he  paid  $600. 
He  was  very  proud  of  a  grand  old  palm  reputed  to  have 
once  belonged  to  Washington's  collection  at  Mt.  Vernon. 

O  O 

It  was  between  two  and  three  centuries  old.  His  grape 
vine  plants  cost  him  between  thirteen  and  fourteen  hundred 
dollars.  In  the  spring  of  the  year  immediately  preced 
ing  his  death,  he  expended  over  $5,000  in  additions  to 
his  greenhouse  varieties.  He  also  took  great  pride  in  his 
herd  of  cows  and  his  poultry,  upon  which  he  spared  no 
expense  to  secure  the  finest  breeds  to  be  purchased  in  his 
own  or  any  other  country.  Two  superb  St.  Bernard  dogs 
were  his  constant  companions  in  his  strolls  about  his 
place  so  long  as  his  limbs  allowed  him  that  luxury.  To 


LABOR  377 

accompany  him  on  his  vioi^b  to  his  numerous  brute  pets 
was  one  of  the  usual  privileges,  occasionally  one  of  the 
penalties,  attached  to  his  hospitality. 

While  from  early  youth  so  economical  of  his  physical 
functions,  he  exercised  no  such  economy  of  his  intellectual 
forces.  He  seemed  to  have  transferred  to  his  brain  all  the 
vitality  which  he  spared  his  muscles,  and  to  have  been  as 
lavish,  not  to  say  intemperate,  in  the  use  of  the  one  as  par 
simonious  of  the  other.  (Whatever  he  undertook  to  do  he 
did  with  all  his  might.  Thoroughness  with  him  amounted 
to  genius.  He  labored  only  with  his  intellect,  but  with 
that  instrument  he  never  did  anything  slovenly  or  by 
halves.  )  Whether  preparing  an  argument  for  the  courts, 
reorganizing  a  corporation,  planning  a  financial  operation 
or  a  political  campaign,  he  took  nothing  for  granted.  He 
was  sometimes  accused  of  being  bold  to  rashness  in  some  of 
his  financial  operations  ;  but  in  point  of  fact,  few  men  took 
less  risk.  Indeed,  he  took  none  which  study,  labor,  or 
expense  could  avoid.  He  could  not  slur  work  of  any  kind. 
The  condition  of  his  health  often  prevented  his  embarking 
in  enterprises,  but  it  never  made  him  less  fastidious  about 
the  perfection  of  those  in  which  he  did  engage.  No  matter 
how  feeble  he  was,  he  spared  neither  time,  money,  nor 
strength  in  mastering  every  detail,  in  providing  for  every 
emergency,  in  anticipating  every  contingency.  Reference 
has  already  been  made  to  this  trait  in  his  character,  in  his 
preparation  for  his  war  upon  the  canal  ring,  and  in  some 
of  his  important  triumphs  at  the  bar.  It  was  equally  con 
spicuous  in  things  of  comparatively  trivial  importance.  If 
he  had  any  responsibility  for  the  decision,  he  could  not  be 
induced  to  accept  any  conclusion  but  that  which  he  had  sat 
isfied  himself  was  the  very  best,  even  in  matters  of  trifling 
moment.  I  remember  when  we  were  crossing  over  from 
England  to  France,  in  1877,  he  asked  me  at  what  hotel  we 
should  alight  in  Paris.  I  named  three  or  four,  of  which  it 
seemed  to  me  to  be  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference  which 


378  THE    LIFE    OF   ^MULE^    J.    TILDE  'N 


we  chose.  This  did  not  suit^inni.  The  constitution  of  his 
mind  compelled  him  to  believe  that  for  some  reason  or 
another,  one  of  the  hotels  must  have  some  advantages  for 
our  purposes  over  either  of  the  others.  He  ordered  his  valet 
to  bring  to  him  one  of  his  boxes,  out  of  which  he  took  a 
small  library  of  guide-books  and  maps,  and  he  spent  most 
of  the  time  of  our  journey  between  Dover  and  Paris  in  as 
certaining  which  of  the  several  dozen  first-class  hotels  in  the 
French  metropolis  would  incontestibly  answer  our  purposes 
best  for  the  three  or  four  weeks  of  our  proposed  sojourn 
there.  Once  when  I  was  present  he  was  waited  upon  by  a 
gentleman  who  wished  to  commend  to  him  a  pretty  impor 
tant  financial  enterprise.  The  promoter  had  not  been 
trained  in  his  school.  Mr.  Tilden  asked  him  a  few  crucial 
questions,  none  of  which  he  could  answer  with  precision. 
Mr.  Tilden  dismissed  him  summarily,  and  showed  consider 
able  irritation  at  being  asked  to  associate  himself  in  a 
scheme  with  a  man  who  knew  none  of  the  facts  which  were 
necessary  to  establish  even  a  presumption  as  to  its  merits 
or  its  demerits. 

It  was  this  extraordinary  crucible  to  which  he  subjected 
everything  upon  which  he  passed  his  judgment  which 
made  him  always  from  his  youth  up,  in  whatever  circle  he 
was  placed,  whether  in  the  councils  of  a  corporation  or  in 
the  councils  of  statesmen,  sooner  or  later  the  leader  and 
the  man  to  whose  guidance  his  associates  found  themselves 

O 

compelled  to  defer.  It  is  no  disparagement  to  others  to 
say  that  our  country  has  hitherto  produced  no  one  man 
who  appeared  to  have  combined  in  himself,  in  the  same 
degree,  the  essential  qualities  of  a  statesman  and  a  politi 
cian,  nor  one  so  admirably  equipped  for  the  most  exalted 
function  of  both. 

It  was  this  quality  of  thoroughness,  of  always  doing  his 
best,  to  which  he  was  indebted  for  his  ample  fortune.  His 
talents  justified  his  ambition  from  early  youth  to  be  a  ruler 
of  men,  to  mature  and  execute  plans  for  the  greatest  good 


HIS    FINANCIAL    SUCCESS  379 

of  the  greatest  number.  When  he  found  the  political 
career  upon  which  he  had  embarked  interrupted  by  the 
schism  which  divided  both  the  great  parties  in  1848,  he 
determined  to  try  another  mode  of  acquiring  authority 
among  his  countrymen.  He  set  his  remarkable  energies 
at  work  to  accumulate  wealth  and  establish  his  pecuniary 
independence,  without  which  he  realized  that  the  time  had 
come  when  the  politician  was  the  slave  rather  than  the 
master.  For  this  the  times  proved  eminently  propitious  to 
those  who,  like  Tilden,  had  the  genius  to  read  them  aright. 
But  even  those  advantages  without  his  indefatigable  thor 
oughness  would  not  have  enabled  him  to  amass  the 
largest  fortune  ever  acquired  by  any  lawyer  in  the  practice 
of  his  profession  in  this  or,  so  far  as  I  know,  in  any  other 
country  in  so  brief  a  period. 

"  The  malice  of  political  opponents,  "  says  Mr.  Carter, 
"was  wont  to  ascribe  his  success  in  money-getting  to 
schemes  for  obtaining  interests  in  the  property  of  insolvent 
railway  companies  at  less  than  their  value.  They  stigma 
tized  him  as  a  '  railroad  wrecker.'  Never  was  there  less 
foundation  for  a  charge.  He  was  a  railroad  preserver. 
His  skill  in  the  management  of  difficult  and  complicated 
affairs,  combined  writh  his  profound  knowledge  of  the 
fundamental  principles  of  equity,  made  his  services  invalua 
ble  to  parties  interested  in  the  properties  and  securities  of 
railroad  companies  which  by  bad  management,  or  in  conse 
quence  of  over-sanguine  expectations,  had  fallen  into 
difficulties.  His  capacious  mind  was  just  fitted  for  the 
survey  of  such  situations.  He  was  among  the  first,  if  not 
the  first,  to  perceive  that  a  ruthless  attempt  to  foreclose  the 
first  mortgage,  and  thus  to  crush  out  all  subordinate  liens 
and  interests,  was  ill  suited  to  such  cases ;  that  the  just 
and  true  method  was  to  ascertain  the  real  capacities  of  the 
business,  and  to  reorganize  the  enterprise  upon  a  scheme 
which  would  indulge  the  hope  of  saving  to  the  junior 
securities  a  large  part  of  their  supposed  original  value. 
More  than  one  of  the  great  railroads  of  the  country  have, 
at  his  skilful  touch,  risen  from  absolute  bankruptcy  into 
prosperity,  and  repaid  all  or  the  larger  part  of  the  original 
investment." 


380  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

When  the  making  of  money  was  Mr.  Tilden's  object  he 
concentrated  all  his  energies  upon  any  money-making 
enterprise  in  which  he  embarked,  as  completely  as  when  he 
engaged  with  the  Tweed  ring  and  with  the  canal  ring.  He 
did  not  give  a  few  hours  of  the  day  to  business  and  the  rest 
to  pleasure,  after  the  manner  of  most  unsuccessful  business 
men.  He  took  his  recreation,  if  at  alL  when  his  work  was 
done  and  his  ends  had  been  achieved,  f  He  was  so  thorough 
in  everything  he  undertook  while  in  trie  active  practice  of 
his  profession,  that  his  services  were  always  in  demand  and 
his  accumulations  rapid,  j  In  seeking  investments  for  his 
earnings  he  was  equally  careful  and  thorough,  and  was  re 
warded  with  corresponding  success. 

Not  infrequently  he  extended  to  others  the  benefit  of  his 
judgment  and  enlightened  foresight.  The  results  in  one  of 
these  cases,  to  which  my  colleague,  Mr.  Smith,  has  called 
my  attention,  were  quite  remarkable.  Between  the  years 
1849  and  1868,  Miss  Catherine  Pierson,  a  maiden  lady  of 
Massachusetts  and  an  old  friejid  of  the  Tilden  family, 
placed  in  Mr.  Tilden's  hands  at  intervals,  or  authorized  him 
to  collect  for  her,  divers  sums  of  money  amounting  in  the 
aggregate  to  a  little  over  $74,000.  Mr.  Tilden  attended  to 
the  collection  and  investment  of  her  money  without  charge 
even  for  his  expenses,  and  in  September,  1880,  when  he 
resigned  his  stewardship,  delivered  to  her  representative 
registered  four  per  cent.  United  States  bonds  of  the  par  value 
of  $250,000,  and  of  the  market  value  of  about  $270,000. 

To  a  woman  from  Michigan,  who  had  asked  him  near  the 
close  of  his  life  to  invest  some  money  for  her,  he,  in  a  few 
words,  gives  some  pregnant  advice  which  it  would  be  well 
if  women  especially  would  lay  to  heart.  He  directed  his 
secretary  to  say : 

"  Mr.  Tilden  cannot  undertake  the  charge  of  the  invest 
ment  you  wish  to  make.  He  has  gradually  retired  from 
every  such  engagement.  His  advice  in  respect  to  the 
$2,000  is  not  to  lose  it  by  bad  investment  or  to  consume  it. 


NOT   A    SPECULATOR  381 

At  six  per  cent,  it  will  give  you  $120  a  year,  which  will  keep 
you  from  absolute  want.  You  should  be  careful  not  to  lend 
it  or  deposit  it  with  any  relation  or  friend  ;  but  should  invest 
it  and  keep  the  principal  intact." 

He  was  no  speculator,  in  the  common  acceptation  of  that 
term.  He  resented  the  imputation  sometimes  made  by  his 
political  opponents,  that  he  had  acquired  his  large  estate 
by  speculations  instead  of  earning  it  by  hard  work.  He 
testified  a  legitimate  sensibility  upon  this  point  in  a  letter 
to  Mr.  Dorsheinier,  who,  in  his  "  Life  of  Grover  Cleve 
land,"  had  given  currency  to  this  reproach. 

Dorsheimer  had  been  recommended  by  Mr.  Tildcn  for 
the  office  of  Lieutenant-Governor,  when  he  himself  was 
elected  Governor  in  1874.  When,  in  1876,  Mr.  Tilden 
was  nominated  for  the  presidency,  Mr.  Dorsheinier  wished 
to  succeed  him  as  Governor,  and  very  unwisely,  as  well  as 
unjustly,  held  Mr.  Tilden  responsible  for  his  failure  to  get 
the  nomination.  He  was  never  constituted  to  be  popular 
with  his  party,  and  powerful  as  Mr.  Tilden  was  in  those 
days,  it  is  extremely  doubtful  if  he  could  have  secured 
Dorsheimer's  nomination  had  he  put  forth  all  his  strength 
to  accomplish  it,  while  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  would  have 
been  extremely  imprudent  in  him  to  have  done  so,  even 
had  success  been  probable.  Dorsheimer  was  weak  enough 
to  resent  this,  and  thenceforth  walked  no  more  with  him, 
but  made  an  alliance  with  the  anti-Tilden  factions  in  New 
York  city,  where,  on  leaving  office,  he  took  up  his  resi 
dence.  Some  eight  years  later,  and  a  few  days  after  Mr. 
Tilden  had  written  his  second  letter  in  June,  1884,  declining 
a  renomination  to  the  presidency,  which  secured  the  nomina 
tion  of  Mr.  Cleveland,  Dorsheimer,  who  had  written  a  cam 
paign  life  of  Mr.  Cleveland  and  was  a  candidate  for  favors 
at  his  hands,  was  indiscreet  enough  to  suppose  the  moment 
a  propitious  one  to  seek  a  revival  of  former  relations  with 
Mr.  Tilden.  The  following  correspondence  was  the  result 
of  it : 


382  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 


DORSHEIMER    TO     TILDEN. 

"WASHINGTON,  June  29,  1884. 

"  MY  DEAR  SIR  :  At  the  time  of  your * brother  Henry's 
death  I  was  on  the  point  of  writing  to  you,  but  was  re 
strained  by  some  considerations  which  I  do  not  think 
necessary  to  mention. 

"  The  announcement  of  your  final  retirement  from  public 
life  has  again  awakened  in  me  a  strong  desire  that  our  long 
estrangement  should  end,  and  therefore  I  write  to  tell  you 
so.  And  if  the  memory  of  our  former  friendship  shall  be 
vivid  and  pleasing  to  you  as  it  is  to  me,  I  shall  not  need  to 
make  any  excuse  for  intruding  upon  you. 
"  With  sincere  regards, 

"  I  am,  your  servant, 

"  WILLIAM  DORSHEIMER. 
"To  the  HON.  SAMUEL  J.  TILDEN." 

In  Mr.  Tilden's  reply  we  see,  among  other  things,  how 
he  resented  the  imputation  of  having  accumulated  his 
wealth  by  "  speculation." 

TILDEN     TO     DORSHEIMER. 

"GRAYSTONE,  YONKERS,  N.Y.,  Oct.  8,  1884. 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  I  received  with  pleasure  your  letter  written 
after  the  publication  of  mine  declining  renomination  for 
the  presidency,  and  referring  to  your  purpose  to  have 
written  an  earlier  one  after  my  brother  Henry's  death.  It 
should  have  been  answered  sooner  but  for  some  causes  not 
affecting  you  or  the  nature  of  my  reply  and  which  have 
now  passed  away. 

"  If  your  reference  to  an  estrangement  were  designed  to 
imply  that  any  occasion  for  the  same  had  been  given  by 
me,  or  to  imply  that  at  any  time  during  the  seven  years 
that  have  passed  I  had  ever  manifested  or  felt  any  resent 
ment  or  any  disposition  to  do  you  harm,  I  should  be  justi 
fied  in  affirming  to  you  the  contrary,  and  even  in  mentioning 
that  my  conduct  towards  you  ought,  in  a  singular  degree,  to 
have  inspired  the  opposite  sentiments  on  your  part. 

"  But  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  reference  was  but  another 


REBUKE    OF   DORSHEIMER  383 

form  of  words  for  saying,  "  Let  bygones  be  bygones,"  and 
so  I  accept  your  letter  and  respond  to  it  in  the  same  spirit 
in  which  I  believe  it  to  have  been  written. 

"  I  have  been  better  able  to  perceive  how  much  of  your 
time  in  the  interval  must  have  been  misspent,  since  my 
attention  was  called  to  a  statement  in  your  biography  of 
Governor  Cleveland,  that  at  the  time  I  became  interested 
in  the  Xew  York  Elevated  Railroad  my  fortune  had  been 
made  by  speculation. 

"  I  could  not  suppose,  with  your  letter  at  hand,  that  in 
this  you  designed  to  say  anything  disagreeable  or  unfriendly 
to  me,  but  it  so  happens  that  the  statement  is  an  almost 
total  error.  My  fortune,  such  as  it  was,  was  the  result  of 
professional  earnings  ;  of  the  growth  of  investments  in 
tended  to  be  permanent  ;  and  of  profits  of  regular  business 
which  had  been  carried  on  for  many  years  under  my  per 
sonal  administration. 

"Very  truly  yours, 

"S.    J.    TlLDEN. 

"HoN.  WILLIAM  DORSHEIMER, 

"  115  Broadway,  New  York 


It  is  but  just  to  Dorsheimer  to  give  his  reply  which 
closed  their  correspondence.  Dorsheinier's  motives  for 
seeking  a  reconciliation  with  Mr.  Tilden  were  not  such  as 
to  prevent  his  dancing  over  the  Governor's  grave  when  he 
was  no  longer  an  object  to  be  courted  or  feared,  thus  fur 
nishing  a  post-mortem  justification  for  the  chilly  reception 
which  the  Governor  gave  to  the  professions  of  friendship 
with  which  he  had  covered  his  advances. 

DORSHEIMER     TO     TILDEN. 

"NEW  YORK,  Nov.  25,  1884. 
"  HON.  SAMUEL  J.  TILDEN,  Gmystone,  YonJeers,  JV.  Y.  : 

"Mr  DEAR  SIR:  I  have  not  made  an  earlier  reply  to 
your  letter,  because  I  could  not  give  the  assurance  with 
reference  to  an  allusion  to  you  in  my  sketch  of  Mr.  Cleve 
land's  life,  which  circumstances  now  enable  me  to  give. 

tf  The  publishers  propose  a  new  and  extended  edition  of 
the  biography,  which  will  give  me  an  opportunity  to  correct 


384  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL  J.    TILDEN 

a  phrase  referring  to  you   which   was   used   without  due 
consideration. 

"  I  think  it,  however,  proper  to  say  that  had  you  con 
sulted  as  familiar  an  authority  as  Webster's  Dictionary, 
you  would  have  found  that  I  had  some  justification  for  the 
use  of  the  word  '  speculation,'  even  in  view  of  your  own 
criticism  upon  it. 

"  But  I  admit  that  the  word  has  come  to  have  a  popular 
meaning  which  refers  it  to  such  operations  as  are  carried 
on  in  Wall  street,  and  that  it  is  not  appropriate  to  apply  it 
to  you. 

"The  carefully  considered  passage,  which  begins  on  pasre 
one  hundred  and  thirty-one  of  the  biography,  should,  I 
think,  have  satisfied  you  that  there  could  have  been  no 
purpose  to  annoy  you  by  the  observation  of  which  you 
complain. 

"  Believe  me  very  respectfully, 
"  Your  servant, 

"WILLIAM  DORSHEIMEK." 


Mr.  Tilden  acquired  a  large  fortune,  but  he  earned  it  by 
very  hard  labor  and  by  the  exercise  of  those  qualities 
which  commonly  ensure  success.  He  was  always  frugal  in 
his  expenditures  and  simple  in  his  habits ;  he  contracted  no 
obligations  which  he  was  not  always  perfectly  competent 
and  ready  to  meet,  and  he  was  extremely  cautious  to  make 
no  promises  nor  to  authorize  any  expectations  which  he  did 
not  loyally  respect.  During  the  fifteen  or  sixteen  years 
which  were  pretty  exclusively  devoted  to  his  profession  he 
was  justly  proud  of  being  able  to  say  that  he  never  ac 
cepted  a  contingent  fee ;  that  he  never  made  a  bargain 
in  advance  for  the  price  of  his  services ;  that  he 
never  had  any  controversy  with  a  client  about  the  value 
of  his  services,  which  were  rendered,  on  his  client's  own 
estimate  and  as  we  have  already  shown,  usually  for  less 
than  an  ordinary  broker's  commission,  but  in  a  single 
instance,  and  in  that  the  justice  of  his  claim  was  eventually 
admitted.  The  money  thus  honorably  and  judiciously 


THE   NEED    OF    OUR    TIME  385 

invested  placed  him  in  a  condition  of  pecuniary  indepen 
dence  which  rendered  him  entirely  inaccessible  to  those 
influences  which  not  infrequently  impair  the  usefulness  of 
the  most  gifted  men. 

Though  as  far  as  possible  from  indulging  that  spirit  of 
self-righteousness  on  which  there  is  a  class  of  politicians 
more  or  less  numerous  always  trading,  Tilden  never  gave 
his  confidence  to  men  who  engaged  in  politics  "  for  what 
there  was  in  it,"  albeit  as  a  party  leader  sometimes  obliged 
to  cooperate  with  them,  and  it  would  be  easy  to  name  many 
prominent  men  whom  he  quietly  assisted  in  dropping  from 
public  life,  becaus^  of  their  tendency  to  sacrifice  the  in 
terests  of  their  party  or  country  to  their  personal  greed, 
vanity,  or  ambition.  <  The  predatory  habits  which  this  ten 
dency  fostered  among  politicians  he  regarded,  and  no 
doubt  correctly,  as  one  of  the  most  deplorable  results  of 
our  Civil  war.  At  a  public  dinner  given  at  Delmonico's, 
on  the  8th  of  February,  1869,  Charles  O'Conor  in  the 
chair,  Mr.  Tilden  expressed  himself  with  much  feeling 
upon  this  subject. 

"  I  may  in  early  life  have  been  disposed  to  censure 
extreme  ambition ;  if  so,  I  have  unlearned  the  sentiment 
when  I  behold  how  much  worse,  in  all  its  influences 
and  all  its  consequences,  is  the  spirit  of  venality  in  public 
affairs.  [Immense  applause.]  I  have  often  felt,  of  late 
years,  that  I  would  thank  God  if  there  would  arise  men 
with  a  generous  devotion  to  the  pursuit  of  ambition  in  the 
public  councils,  so  that  thus  politics  would  cease  to  be  the 
theatre  of  the  votaries  of  gain,  and  that  human  nature,  even 
in  its  selfishness,  would  present  its  more  generous  and 
more  useful  forms.  [Applause.]  I  think  "the  time  will 
speedily  come  when  among  good  citizens  of  all  parties  and 
all  classes  this  will  be  urged  as  the  great  need  of  the  time, 
and  when  we  may  meet  together  and  discuss  our  differences 
of  opinion,  our  differences  of  sentiment,  and  entertain 
charity  for  those  vagaries  which  it  is  impossible  for  us  not 
to  have,  remembering  that  this  human  society  of  which  we 
form  a  part  can  only  <ret  on  when  our  public  servants  are 

VOL.  1 1. -25 


386  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

faithful,  single-minded,  and  pure  in  their  public  trusts. 
And  to  them  we  all,  of  all  classes,  of  all  parties,  and  of 
all  degrees,  must  unite  in  rendering  homage." 

In  early  life  Mr.  Tilden  was  a  very  careful  student  of 
the  history  of  the  first  Napoleon,  and  I  have  heard  him  say 
that  nothing  would  have  suited  him  so  well  as  a  military 
career.  That  he  was  a  born  general,  and  at  the  head  of  an 
army  would  have  made  a  place  for  himself  among  the  great 
soldiers  of  the  world,  had  the  opportunity  been  afforded 
him,  I  have  no  difficulty  in  believing.  He  was  sometimes 
accused  of  indecision  and  of  wasting  opportunities  in  de 
liberation.  I  think  this  a  superficial  criticism.  He  decided 
promptly  enough  when  all  the  elements  for  a  decision  were 
in  his  possession  or  under  his  control,  or  when  more  was  to 
be  accomplished  by  decision  than  delay.  He  was  not  con 
stitutionally  a  Fabian  general,  but  he  was  a  Fabius  when 
the  war  he  was  prosecuting  required  Fabian  generalship. 
He  sometimes  disappointed  his  political  partisans  by  de 
clining  to  adopt  their  views,  but  events  generally  proved 
that  it  was  because  he  saw  much  farther  than  they.  Politi 
cal  forces  are  not  all  under  the  control  of  a  party  leader  in 
the  same  degree  that  the  forces  of  an  army  are  under  the 
control  of  its  general,  and  what  seemed  indecision  in  him 
was  often,  if  not  always,  prudence,  good  judgment,  and  an 
uncommonly  correct  appreciation  of  the  value  of  time  as  an 
ally.  When  he  said,  "  Not  yet,"  it  always  meant  that  he 
was  waiting  for  the  reserves  which  time  was  bringing  to  his 
aidj 

"  His  confidences, "  says  Mr.  Carter,  very  truly,  "  were 
not  effusive,  nor  their  subjects  numerous ;  his  deliberation 
was  unfailing,  and  sometimes  carried  the  idea  of  indecision, 
not  to  say  of  an  actual  love  of  procrastination ;  but  in  my 
experience  with  him  I  found  that  he  invariably  ended  where 
he  began,  and  it  was  never  difficult  for  those  to  whom  he 
gave  his  trust  to  divine  at  once  the  bias  of  his  mind  when 
he  thought  it  best  to  reserve  its  conclusions.  I  do  not 


CROMWELL  387 

think  that  in  any  great  affair  he  ever  hesitated  longer  than 
the  gravity  of  the  case  required  of  a  prudent  man,  or  that 
he  had  a  preference  for  delays,  or  that  he  clung  over-tena- 
ciously  to  both  horns  of  the  dilemma,  as  his  professional 
training  and  instincts  might  lead  him  to  do,  and  did  cer 
tainly  expose  him  to  the  suspicion  of  doing." 

I  accompanied  Mr.  Tilden  to  a  theatre  one  evening  in 
the  spring  of  1877.  He  had  been  delving  at  his  leisure  for 
some  weeks  in  fr  Carlyle's  Letters  and  Speeches  of  Crom 
well,"  prompted  thereto  originally,  perhaps,  by  the  tradi 
tional  kinship  of  his  ancestry  with  that  of  the  "  Great 
Usurper."  When  we  returned  I  made  the  following  mem 
oranda  of  his  conversation  upon  the  theme  which  just  then 
seemed  to  interest  him  far  more  than  the  play : 

"  Tilden  has  been  reading  Carlyle's  f  Cromwell,'  and  in 
connection  various  biographies  of  C.  in  his  library,  and 
monographs.  He  says  he  does  not  remember  to  have  had 
his  views  of  any  eminent  man  more  seriously  modified  by 
reading  about  him  than  his  about  Cromwell.  He  is  spe 
cially  impressed  with  the  man's  moderation,  sagacity,  and 
general  superiority.  He  seems  to  have  considered  and  pro 
vided  everything  that  was  required  for  the  success  of  the 
revolution  he  conducted.  He  recurred  to  the  subject  re 
peatedly  in  the  course  of  the  evening  and  after  we  returned 
from  the  theatre.  He  was  constantly  viewing  Cromwell 
from  his  own  standpoint.  He  remarked  that  Cromwell  had 
a  religious  fanaticism  to  aid  him  in  controlling  his  parti 
sans,  which  had  far  more  cohesive  power  than  any  of  the 
ordinary  political  discontents  which  operate  upon  parties 
now.  He  also  noticed  that  Cromwell  began  his  revolution 
with  money  raised  exclusively  by  subscription ;  a  thought 
suggested  no  doubt  by  the  excuses  assigned  by  some  of  his 
friends  for  not  insisting  upon  our  rights  in  Washington  at 
all  hazards,  because  the  State  Legislatures  in  all  the  North 
ern  and  Middle  States  were  Republican.  Knowing,  as  I 
did,  the  situation  which  attracted  Tilden's  attention  to  the 
study  of  Cromwell's  career  at  this  period,  I  could  not  help 
thinking  that  if  Tilden  were  as  badly  disposed  a  man  as  the 
Republican  press  represented  him  during  the  late  canvass, 
how  dangerous  he  might  have  been." 


388  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDE N 

It  was  the  thoroughness  with  which  he  mastered  every 
detail,  forecast  every  contingency,  and  by  his  precautions, 
as  it  were,  defied  the  Fates,  that  made  him  always  and 
everywhere  primus  inter  pares,  that  impressed  Mr.  Carter 
"  with  his  prodigious  superiority  to  other  men,"  and  which, 
mutatis  mutandis,  might  have  made  him  as  famous  a  leader 
in  the  field  as  in  the  council  chamber,  for  he  had  few 
adventitious  advantages.  He  had  no  particular  charm  of 
person ;  he  always  looked  the  invalid  he  was ;  he  had  no 
special  graces  of  manner,  nor  was  he  eloquent  of  speech. 
The  effect  of  his  oratory  was  due  exclusively  to  the  things 
he  said,  not  to  the  way  he  said  them.  He  had  a  feeble 
voice,  his  elocution  was  utterly  ineffective,  and  but  for  the 
fact  that  he  never  spoke  without  having  something  to  say 
which  no  other  speaker  was  likely  to  say  with  equal 
authority,  he  would  have  passed  for  a  dull  and  tedious 
speaker. 

Though  his  public  papers,  especially  those  which  were 
written  after  he  had  reached  maturity,  are  models  of  pure 
and  idiomatic  English,  and  some  of  them  in  many  respects 
superior  to  anything  to  be  found  in  our  political  literature, 
Mr.  Tilden  wrote  with  great  difficulty.  He  always  wrote 
for  the  purpose  of  commending  his  opinions  to  his  readers, 
little  occupied  with  what  they  were  going  to  think  of  him  as 
a  writer.  He  shrank  from  no  amount  of  labor  to  make  his 
statement  exhaustive  and  irresistible.  He  would  spend 
more  days  over  a  paper  designed  for  the  public  eye  than 
most  men  would  spend  hours.  It  mattered  not  how  many 
other  things  were  pressing  upon  his  attention,  nor  what  the 
condition  of  his  health  at  the  time,  he  would  never  permit 
a  paper  to  go  out  of  his  hands  until  he  had  made  its  posi 
tions  as  nearly  impregnable  as  it  was  possible  for  him  to 
make  them.  Though  perfectly  just  toward  an  adversary, 
he  never  neglected  a  fair  advantage.  His  logic  was  sure 
to  be  irresistible,  and  every  statement  of  fact  susceptible 
of  verification.  He  never  made  public  use  of  rumors  or 


HIS    SKILL    AS    A    NEGOTIATOR  389 

presumptions  or  suspicions.  He  left  them  on  the  tree  where 
they  grew  till  they  ripened  or  rotted.  He  was  not  fluent ; 
his  first  draft  of  a  paper  was  to  its  ultimate  appearance  but 
as  clay  to  porcelain.  He  was  indefatigable  in  altering  and 
perfecting.  He  rarely  —  I  think  it  would  be  safe  to  say 
that  he  never  —  sent  a  paper  to  the  press  that  he  did  not 
submit  to  two  or  three  or  more  friends  as  a  sort  of  jury  of 
his  countrymen  for  the  purpose  of  gathering  from  their 
criticism  whether  what  he  had  written  was  likely  to  leave 
upon  the  public  mind  the  impression  he  intended  to  leave. 
He  had  not  the  least  pride  of  authorship,  and  was  as  ready 
to  avail  himself  of  the  suggestions  of  others  as  to  adhere  to 
his  own;  indeed  rather  more,  for  it  was  the  public  which 
they  represented,  not  himself,  whom  he  wished  to  impress. 
His  judgment  of  words  or  forms  of  expression  that  weaken 
or  strengthen  a  sentence  was  infallible.  He  never  allowed 
himself  the  use  of  expressions  not  idiomatic  or  which  the 
plainest  people  would  stumble  over. 

As  a  negotiator  Mr.  Tilden  was  a  marvel.  He  always 
began  by  making  himself  acquainted  with  the  merits  and 
strength  of  both  sides,  and  he  fought  only  for  the  margin. 
He  never  lost  his  temper  —  though  he  sometimes  affected  to 
do  so  —  nor  the  control  of  his  tongue.  I  have  rarely  known 
a  man  of  eminence  in  public  life  who  was  less  censorious, 
or  whose  judgments  were  at  once  more  inflexible  towards 
the  sin  and  at  the  same  time  so  charitable  towards  the 
sinner.  Whether  systematically  or  unconsciously,  he  al 
ways  dealt  with  his  friends  as  if  they  might  some  day 
become  his  enemies,  and  with  his  enemies  as  if  they  might 
become  his  friends,  the  results  of  both  which  he  had  fre 
quent  experience. 

As  a  consequence,  it  was  never  embarrassing  for  him  to 
enter  into  correspondence  and  relations  with  his  adversaries 
whenever  any  adequate  object  for  doing  so  presented  itself. 
Though  holding  more  or  less  familiar  relations  with  Mr. 
Tilden  for  a  period  of  more  than  fifty  years,  I  should  find  it 


390  THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

very  difficult  to  recall  a  half-dozen  instances  in  which  he 
allowed  himself  to  apply  an  opprobrious  epithet  to  or  speak 
of  any  one  in  terms  which,  if  repeated,  would  have  dis 
turbed  their  relations  with  each  other.  Were  any  one  the 
object  of  denunciations  in  his  presence,  he  was  apt  to  make 
some  remark  which  disqualified  their  author  for  assuming 
from  his  silence  that  he  acquiesced  in  their  justice.  It 
was  also  a  rare  thing  for  any  one  to  leave  him  without 
feeling  that  in  one  way  or  another  his  acquaintance  was  an 
important  asset. 

As  the  leader  of  a  great  party,  he  was  compelled  to  enter 
into  relations  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  Many 
people  eschew  cooperation  with  those  of  low  degree  and  of 
questionable  character,  as  frequently  from  selfish  as  from 
virtuous  motives.  Mr.  Tilden  appropriated  force  wherever 
he  found  it,  for  he  had  no  fear  of  being  over-reached  by 
any  one.  He  used  men  of  low  standards  for  his  purposes 
when  they  could  be  made  useful,  but  never  exhibited  con 
tempt  for  those  who  did  not  choose  to  follow  him.  This 
gave  him  a  prodigious  influence  for  good  with  the  classes 
most  dangerous  to  society  when  not  properly  led./  He 
usually  managed  to  divide  those  he  could  not  control,  so 
that  they  should  waste  their  energies  upon  each  other,  leav 
ing  to  him  the  comparatively  easy  task  of  holding  and 
wielding  the  balance  of  power  between  them.)  It  was  in 
this  way  that  he  rendered  Tammany  Hall  practically  power 
less,  when  under  leadership  factions  it  was  bent  upon 
mischief. 

There  were  two  principles  of  leadership  upon  which  he 
often  dwelt  in  conversation  and  which  were  peculiarly  his 
own.  One  was  a  generous  recognition  of  the  part  which 
the  imagination  exercises  upon  the  tidal  ebbs  and  flows  of 
public  opinion,  and  the  other  was  the  importance  of  keep 
ing  his  party  constantly  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy.  He 
regarded  the  imagination  of  a  nation  as  of  an  individual, 
much  as  the  furnace  to  a  steamer.  It  must  be  carefully 


HIS    THEORY  OF  PARTY  LEADERSHIP  391 

fed,  and  the  force  it  generates  wisely  directed.  Disaster 
is  sure  to  follow  the  neglect  of  either  of  these  conditions. 
There  was  something  dramatic,  appealing  directly  to  the 
imagination,  in  everything  he  did,  upon  which  his  fame 
either  as  a  lawyer  or  as  a  statesman  rests.  For  example,  the 
manner  in  which  he  reconstructed  the  tallies  fraudulently 
destroyed  in  the  Flagg  case,  and  won  it  without  calling  a 
single  witness  or  having  a  witness  to  call ;  the  manner  in 
which  he  proved  in  the  Burdell  case  that  the  clergyman  had 
actually  married  another  woman  than  the  one  he  supposed 
and  swore  he  had  married  ;  the  manner  in  which  he  possessed 
himself  of  the  evidence  by  which  he  overthrew  the  Tweed 
ring  at  the  moment  when  it  seemed  most  securely  en 
trenched,  and  sent  'Tweed  and  his  confederates  into  exile 
or  prison  ;  the  manner  in  which  —  no  one  suspecting  what 
he  was  about  —  he  procured  the  evidence  upon  which  he 
trailed  his  guns  upon  the  canal  ring,  morally  and  politi 
cally  the  most  important  of  all  his  victories ;  and  finally, 
the  triumphant  manner  in  which  he  used  the  hold  he  had 
already  acquired  upon  the  popular  imagination  to  carry 
off  the  presidential  nomination  from  the  numerous  and 
impatient  aspirants  in  and  out  of  Congress,  in  1876 ; 
in  all  these  cases  the  part  he  played  was  more  or  less 
unique,  and  so  managed  as  to  appeal,  as  no  other  Demo 
cratic  statesman  since  Jackson's  time  had  done,  strongly 
to  the  imagination,  not  only  of  his  own  State,  but  of  the 
whole  nation. 

He  believed  also  in  keeping  his  party  always  under  arms, 
and  in  or  ready  for  a  fight,  upon  the  same  principle  that  a 
good  general  always  keeps  his  troops,  or  the  captain  of  an 
ocean  steamer  his  sailors,  fully  employed.  An  army  has  no 
reason  for  existing  without  an  enemy.  He  held  the  same 
to  be  true  with  a  party.  The  very  name  implies  an  adver 
sary  and  hostility.  The  duty  of  the  leader  is  to  keep  the 
hostile  energy  distinctly  in  view  of  his  followers,  and  in 
leading  his  followers  to  expect  every  moment,  and  to  be 


392  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

always  prepared  to  profit  by,  an  advantageous  opportunity 
of  assailing  it.  A  party  thus  led  does  not  clamor  for  bi 
partisan  commission,  and  the  voice  of  the  dealer  is  not 
heard  in  its  camp. 

He  liked  praise,  but  it  never  seemed  to  mislead  him,  for 
he  judged  his  own  achievements  most  impartially.  He 
liked  praise  when  he  felt  himself  entitled  to  it,  but  he  did 
not  purchase  it  for  more  than  it  was  worth.  Flattery  is 
the  homage  consciously  or  unconsciously  paid  to  some 
kind  of  superiority.  Of  that  he  received  an  abundance  ;  but 
no  one  better  than  he  knew  the  difference  between  flattery 
and  honest  commendation. 

He  was  intensely  pleased  with  what  O'Conor  said  of  his 
part  in  the  Flagg  case,  and  was  fond  of  repeating  it,  as  he 
might  be,  for  though  a  junior  counsel  to  the  two  most  emi 
nent  lawyers  then  at  the  New  York  bar,  to  him  belonged 
the  entire  credit  of  winning  a  case  of  almost  national  im 
portance,  which,  but  for  his  ingenious  defence,  would 
unquestionably  have  been  lost. 

Though  he  conducted  his  business  on  business  prin 
ciples,  and  never  allowed  it  to  be  confounded  with  his 
charities,  he  was  a  liberal  giver.  Aside  from  his  con 
tributions  to  party  purposes,  which  after  he  became 
chairman  of  the  State  central  committee  were  usually 
as  large  and  often  larger  than  those  of  any  other  person 
to  the  end  of  his  days,  no  one  was  ever  allowed  to 
go  empty  away,  who  represented  a  cause  or  an  object 
which  commended  itself  to  his  judgment. 

Mr.  Tilden  "  experienced  religion  "  at  the  age  of  nine 
teen,  when  he  and  his  sister  Mary  were  simultaneously 
admitted  as  members  of  the  Presbyterian  church  at  New 
Lebanon.  He  owned  a  pew  in  the  Madison-square  Pres 
byterian  church  in  New  York  city  for  many  years,  and 
up  to  the  time  of  his  death,  where  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
attending  service  until  he  took  up  his  residence,  as 
Governor,  in  Albany.  There  he  attended  the  church,  of 


RELIGIOUS    EXPERIENCE  393 

which  Chancellor  Upson  was  pastor,  pretty  regularly. 
When  he  resumed  his  residence  in  Xew  York,  in  1877,  his 
infirmities  rendered  it  at  first  embarrassing  and  afterwards 
painful  to  submit  to  the  constraints  of  a  house  of  worship 
during  the  ordinary  Sabbath  exercises.  He  rarely,  if  ever, 
attended  divine  service  in  any  church  after  that  year.  Mr. 
Tilden  used  to  quote  a  remark  of  Bryant,  who  I  suspect 
borrowed  it  from  Chesterfield,  that  a  gentleman  never  talks 
of  his  love  affairs  or  of  his  religion.  Tilden  at  least  lived 
up  to  this  principle.  He  had  no  love  affairs  to  talk  of, 
and  while  he  often  encouraged  others  to  unfold  their 
opinions  upon  religious  subjects  to  him,  I  doubt  if  at  any 
time  during  the  last  half  of  his  life  he  exposed  his 
own  views  to  any  one.  The  Bible  could  hardly  be  regarded 
as  a  lamp  to  his  feet  and  a  light  to  his  path.  If  it  was,  it 
must  have  been  by  virtue  of  the  lessons  he  received  from 
it  in  early  youth,  when  he  undoubtedly  acquired  as 
thorough  a  familiarity  with  its  contents  as  he  was  qualified 
to  receive.  But  the  Bible  is  a  fountain,  not  a  reservoir, 
and  though  one  may  carry  the  words,  he  can  no  more  carry 
all  the  lessons  of  the  Bible  in  the  memory,  than  he  can 
warm  himself  in  winter  with  the  summer's  heat.  When 
devoutly  read,  it  is  a  new  book  every  day,  for  the 
import  of  those  lessons  to  every  one  changes  with  every 
change  of  his  spiritual  condition.  Had  Mr.  Tilden  studied 
it  as  he  studied  the  other  subjects  which  engrossed  his  atten 
tion  in  later  life,  he  might  perhaps  have  found  shorter  and 
easier  ways  out  of  many  of  his  troubles,  and  have  expe 
rienced  many  more  pleasurable  emotions  in  his  declining 
years.  But  though  apparently  little  occupied  with  the 
dogmas  for  which  the  different  religious  sects  find  pretexts 
in  the  Bible,  Mr.  Tilden  was  profoundly  penetrated  and 
permeated  by  its  ethics,  and  in  many  wa}Ts  betrayed  the 
tenacity  of  his  early  faith  in  their  divine  origin  and 
authority. 

Whatever  may  be  the  judgment  which  history  is  to  pass 


394  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDE  N 

upon  the  career  of  the  hero  of  this  imperfect  narrative,  it 
will  search  in  vain  to  find  in  the  political  annals  of  this 
Kepublic  the  names  of  many  who  ever  rendered  it  such 
effective  and  enduring  service,  nor  of  those,  any  whose 
service  cost  it  so  little. 


APPENDICES 


APPENDIX    A 


DRAFT  OF   THE    ADDRESS   PREPARED    FOR   THE    MINORITY  OF   THE   ELECTORAL 
COMMISSION    OF   1877. 

BY  THE   HON.  JOSIAH  G.  ABBOTT,  LL.D. 

To  tlit  People  of  the   United  States  : 

THE  minority  of  the  joint  commission  established  by  tbe  act  of  Congress 
of  Jan.  27,  1877,  to  decide  questions  arising  in  the  count  of  the  electoral 
votes,  desire  to  address  the  people  of  the  whole  country  on  the  subjects 
submitted  to  and  decided  by  that  commission. 

No  more  important  questions  can  ever  come  before  any  tribunal  or 
people  for  consideration  and  determination.  Upon  their  determination 
depends  who  shall  be  the  President  of  this  country,  and  whether  he  shall 
owe  that  great  office  to  the  free,  honest  choice  of  the  people,  or  to  bribery, 
forgery,  and  gross  fraud. 

The  minority  of  that  commission,  by  the  law  establishing  it,  had  no 
opportunity  of  reporting  the  reasons  for  their  action  to  the  two  Houses  of 
Congress.  The  presence  of  a  stenographer  at  these  consultations  was 
denied,  so  that  no  record  thereof  exists.  No  way  is  open  to  those  who  did 
not  join  in,  but  on  the  contrary  protested  against,  the  decisions  of  the  com 
mission,  to  make  public  their  protest  except  by  this  address. 

The  returns  of  the  electoral  vote  of  four  States — Florida,  Louisiana, 
Oregon,  and  South  Carolina  —  were  submitted  to  and  decided  upon  by  the 
commission. 

FLORIDA. 

In  the  case  of  Florida  there  were  three  certificates.  The  first,  signed  by 
the  Governor,  certified  that  the  four  Hayes  electors  were  elected  according 
to  the  law  of  Florida  and  the  acts  of  Congress.  The  second  was  signed  by 
the  Attorney-General,  and  the  third  by  the  Governor  elected  on  the  seventh 
of  November  last ;  and  both  certified  the  election  of  the  Tilden  electors. 
The  Attorney-General  was  one  of  the  three  persons  first  canvassing  the 
votes. 

To  the  third  certificate  were  attached  certified  copies  of  all  the  returns  of 
votes  from  every  precinct  in  the  State,  which  were  originally  made  to  the 
Secretary  of  the  State,  together  with  an  act  of  the  Legislature  providing  for 
a  new  canvass  of  the  vote,  according  to  the  law  as  it  had  been  decided  by 
the  Supreme  Court,  and  the  result  of  the  new  canvass  thus  ordered. 


398  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN 

It  was  offered  to  be  proved,  and  it  was  not  denied  that  such  was  the  fact, 
that  by  counting  all  the  votes  returned  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  according 
to  the  law  of  Florida  as  expounded  by  the  Supreme  Court,  the  Tilden 
electors  had  been  duly  elected. 

It  was  offered  to  be  proved,  and  was  not  denied,  that  the  Tilden  electors 
commenced  proceedings  in  quo  warranto  against  the  Hayes  electors  in  the 
court  of  that  State  having  jurisdiction  by  its  constitution,  notice  of  which 
was  served  on  the  latter  before  they  gave  their  votes,  and  as  soon  as  they 
were  declared  elected,  and  which  was  prosecuted  to  this  judgment  —  that 
the  Hayes  electors  had  not  been  elected  and  had  no  title  to  the  office,  but 
that  the  Tilden  electors  had  been  legally  elected  and  were  entitled  to  the 
office. 

It  was  offered  to  be  proved,  and  was  not  denied,  that  the  two  canvassers 
who  had  made  the  certificate  of  election  of  the  Hayes  electors,  which  by 
the  law  of  Florida  was  made  only  prima  facie  evidence,  had  erred  in  their 
construction  of  the  law  and  exceeded  their  jurisdiction  by  so  doing,  in  their 
canvass  of  votes  on  which  the  certificate  was  based. 

Thus  it  was  offered  to  be  proved,  and  the  facts  were  not  denied,  that  the 
Governor's  certificate  given  to  the  Hayes  electors  was  false,  and  that  the 
determination  and  certificate  of  two  of  the  three  who  made  up  the  Board  of 
Canvassers  was  false  in  fact  and  in  violation  of  the  laws  of  Florida,  and 
that  in  making  it  the  two  had  exceeded  their  jurisdiction.  It  was  offered 
to  be  proved  that  the  Supreme  Court  of  Florida  had,  in  effect,  decided  that 
the  two  canvassers  had  made  a  false  certificate  and  exceeded  their  jurisdic 
tion,  and  that  the  Circuit  Court  had  so  decided.  It  was  offered  to  be 
proved  that  both  the  Legislature  and  the  executive  of  the  State  had  so 
determined,  and  had  attempted  by  all  means  in  their  power  to  prevent  the 
State  being  defrauded  of  its  true  and  real  vote. 

The  majority  of  the  commission  decided  that  the  determination  and 
certificate  of  two  of  a  board  of  three  canvassers,  with  ministerial  powers 
only,  and  which  by  law  was  prima  facie,  not  conclusive,  evidence,  must 
stand  and  decide  the  great  question  of  the  presidency,  although  it  could 
clearly  be  proved  to  be  false  in  fact,  and  that  in  making  it  the  two  can 
vassers  had  exceeded  their  jurisdiction  and  authority,  as  held  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  State,  and  although  the  Legislature  and  Governor  had 
both  declared  it  false,  and  that  by  giving  effect  to  it  the  State  would  be 
defrauded  of  its  true  and  real  vote ;  and  although  the  electors,  in  whose 
favor  it  was  made,  had  been  declared  by  the  courts  not  to  have  been 
elected.  The  injustice  of  this  decision  was  the  more  marked  and  flagrant  by 
contrast.  All  the  State  officers,  from  tlie  Governor  down,  who  were  voted 
for  on  the  same  ticket  with  the  Tilden  electors,  and  had  been  counted  out 
by  the  same  two  canvassers,  at  the  same  time,  and  by  the  same  canvass  by 
which  the  latter  were  counted  out,  had  been  declared  elected  by  the  action 
of  the  highest  court  of  the  State,  and  are  now  and  have  been  holding  their 
several  offices  to  the  general  contentment  of  the  citizens  of  Florida.  But 
the  Hayes  electors  alone  are  permitted  by  this  decision  to  consummate  the 
wrong,  and  act  in  offices  to  which  they  were  never  elected. 


ADDRESS    OF  HON.  J.   G.  ABBOTT  399 

Against  this  decision  of  the  commission  the  undersigned  protested  and 
now  protest  as  wrong  in  law,  bad  in  morals,  and  worse  in  the  consequences 
which  it  entails  on  a  great  country. 

It  gives  absolute  power  to  two  inferior  ministerial  officers  to  withhold 
their  determination  till  the  day  when  the  electoral  vote  is  cast,  as  was  done 
in  this  case,  and  then  give  the  vote  of  a  State  to  a  candidate  who  has  never 
received  it,  as  was  done  in  this  case,  and  tells  the  people  there  is  no  redress 
for  such  an  outrage. 

It  is  a  decision  admirably  calculated  to  encourage  fraud,  and  ensure  its 
being  perpetrated  with  success  and  impunity. 

It  is  a  decision  by  which  the  people  of  a  State  may  be  defrauded  and 
robbed  of  their  dearest  rights  by  a  few  unprincipled  wretches,  and  be  then 
compelled  to  acquiesce  in  the  great  wrong. 

It  is  a  decision  claimed  to  be  based  on  the  doctrine  of  State  rights,  but, 
in  fact,  is  in  direct  conflict  with  that  great  doctrine,  for  by  it  States  and  the 
peoples  of  States  can  be  stripped  of  their  rights  and  liberties,  with  no 
power  to  resist. 

We  protest  against  the  decision  finally  because  by  it  the  people  of  the 
whole  United  States  are  defrauded  and  cheated ;  because  by  it  a  person  is 
put  into  the  great  office  of  President,  who  has  never  been  chosen  according 
to  the  Constitution  and  law,  and  whose  only  title  depends  on  the  false  and 
fraudulent  certificate  of  two  men  in  the  State  of  Florida,  instead  of  a  ma 
jority  of  the  legal  voices  of  the  whole  people,  declared  through  and  by 
their  electoral  colleges. 

LOUISIANA. 

In  the  case  of  Louisiana,  the  decision  of  a  majority  of  the  commission  is 
a  stupendous  wrong  to  the  people  of  that  State,  and  all  the  other  States,  and 
in  defiance  of  all  right,  justice,  law,  and  fair  dealing  among  men. 

The  law  of  that  State  establishes  a  Returning  Board  to  consist  of  five  per 
sons  of  different  parties,  with  power  to  fill  vacancies,  and  to  canvass  and 
compile  the  returns  of  votes  from  the  different  parishes  and  precincts,  and 
declare  the  result.  The  board  is  given  power  and  jurisdiction  —  provided 
affidavits  are  annexed  to  and  received  with  the  return  from  any  precinct  or 
parish  —  to  inquire  whether  intimidation  has  existed,  and  if  it  is  established 
to  throw  out  the  return  for  such  parish ;  but  this  jurisdiction  is  carefully 
confined  to  cases  where  affidavits  are  attached  to  and  returned  with  the 
returns  of  the  votes ;  in  no  other  case  whatsoever  is  the  power  to  reject 
votes  given. 

It  was  offered  to  be  proved,  and  was  not  denied,  that  the  board  giving 
the  certificate  to  the  Hayes  electors  consisted  of  four  persons  —  all  of  the 
Republican  party — instead  of  five  persons  of  different  parties,  as  required 
by  law ;  that  these  four  members  had  been  requested  and  required  by  Dem 
ocrats  to  fill  the  vacancy  with  a  Democrat,  but  had  uniformly  refused  to 
do  so. 

It  was  offered  to  be  proved,  also,  that  this  board  of  four  persons  —  all  of 


400  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

the  Republican  party  —  in  order  to  perpetrate  the  frauds  with  ease  and 
impunity,  employed  five  disreputable  persons  as  clerks  and  assistants,  all 
of  whom  had  been  convicted,  or  were  under  indictment,  for  various 
offences,  ranging  from  subornation  of  perjury  up  to  murder.  Indict 
ment,  at  least,  if  not  conviction,  seemed  the  only  admitted  qualification 
of  employment  by  that  extraordinary  board. 

It  was  offered  to  be  proved,  and  was  not  denied,  that  this  board,  in  "order 
to  give  the  certificate  of  election  to  the  Hayes  electors,  had  rejected  ten 
thousand  votes,  and  this  was  done,  although  not  a  return  thrown  out  had 
been  accompanied  by  the  requisite  affidavit  to  give  jurisdiction  to  act  at  all. 

It  was  offered  to  be  proved  that  the  members  of  this  Returning  Board,  in 
order  to  give  the  certificate  of  election  to  the  Hayes  electors,  had  resorted 
to  and  used  affidavits  known  by  them  to  be  false  and  forged,  had  them 
selves  been  guilty  of  forgery,  and  had  been  paid  for  making  their  determi 
nation,  thus  adding  bribery  to  the  catalogue  of  their  crimes. 

Numerous  other  corrupt  and  fraudulent  practices  were  offered  to  be 
proved  against  the  members  of  this  Returning  Board,  among  the  least  of 
which  was  a  wicked  conspiracy  to  rob  the  people  of  Louisiana  of  their 
rights  and  liberties. 

The  decision  of  a  majority  of  the  commission  rejected  all  this  evidence, 
and  held  that  the  certificate  of  election  given  to  the  Hayes  electors  must 
stand,  and  could  not  be  inquired  into,  if  all  such  offers  of  proof  could  be 
substantiated. 

By  that  decision  the  people  of  the  United  States  are  told  that  the  certifi 
cate  of  a  board  constituted  in  direct  defiance  of  the  law  establishing  it,  and 
made  by  grasping  a  jurisdiction  never  granted  to  it,  arrived  at  by  forgery, 
perjury,  wicked  conspiracy,  and  the  grossest  frauds,  and  finally  bought 
and  paid  for,  must  stand,  and  cannot  be  set  aside  ;  and  although  steeped  in 
sin  and  iniquity,  it  must  make  the  chief  magistrate  of  a  great,  free,  and 
intelligent  people. 

The  undersigned  protest  against  this  decision,  also,  as  bad  in  law,  worse 
in  morals,  and  absolutely  ruinous  in  its  consequences. 

They  denounce  it  in  the  presence  of  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
and  in  the  face  of  the  world,  because,  if  intended  and  designed  for  such  a 
purpose,  it  could  not  have  been  more  cunningly  contrived  than  it  is  to  en 
courage  the  grossest  frauds,  conspiracies,  and  corruptions  in  the  election  of 
a  President. 

They  denounce  it,  because  it  will  debase  the  national  character,  deaden 
the  public  conscience,  and  encourage  fraud  and  corruption  in  all  the  public 
and  private  transactions  and  business  of  the  people.  • 

They  denounce  it,  because  for  the  first  time  it  declares  to  the  people  that 
by  their  organic  law,  the  Constitution,  it  is  ordained  that  a  man  may  seek 
for,  obtain,  and  hold  this  great  office  of  chief  magistrate  of  two  and  forty 
millions  of  freemen  by  fraud  and  cheating. 

Nay,  more,  that  he  may  openly  buy  the  votes  to  elect  himself,  and  pay 
down  the  price  when  the  purchase  is  consummated  by  the  count  by  the  two 


ADDRESS    OF   HON.  J.   G.  ABBOTT  401 

Houses  of  Congress,  and  call  them  to  witness  the  payment;  and  that  there 
is  no  help  for  it  but  revolution. 

They  denounce  it,  because,  in  effect,  it  puts  up  the  great  office  of  Presi 
dent  at  auction,  and  says  to  the  whole  world  that  it  may  be  bought  in 
safety,  and  that  there  is  no  way  known  to  man  by  which  the  title  by  pur 
chase  can  be  disputed  or  gainsaid. 

OREGON. 

In  the  Oregon  case,  a  certificate  signed  by  the  Governor  and  Secretary  of 
State,  and  under  the  great  seal  of  the  State,  certified  to  the  election  of  two 
Hayes  and  one  Tilden  elector.  The  three  Hayes  electors  produced  no  certifi 
cation  of  election  signed  by  any  person — only  a  certificate  of  certain  results 
—  from  which  it  was  claimed  that  it  could  be  inferred  who  were  elected. 
The  law  of  Oregon  required  a  list  of  the  persons  elected  to  be  signed  by 
the  Governor  and  Secretary  of  State,  under  the  great  seal,  and  this  require 
ment,  as  well  as  that  of  the  acts  of  Congress,  was  fully  met  and  satisfied 
by  the  first  certificate.  There  was  no  certificate  in  the  second  case  in  any 
manner  complying  with  the  laws  of  Oregon  or  the  acts  of  Congress.  Yet  by 
the  decision  of  the  commission  the  first  certificate  was  rejected  and  the 
second  taken,  although  clearly  neither  in  conformity  with  State  or  Federal 
law. 

The  undersigned  voted  against  counting  the  vote  of  the  Tilden  elector, 
because,  notwithstanding  the  certificate  of  the  Governor  and  Secretary  of 
State,  they  were  satisfied  he  had  not  been  elected  by  the  people  of  Oregon, 
and  that  his  vote  would  not  have  been  the  true  vote  of  that  State. 

The  majority  of  the  commission  decided  to  set  aside  and  reject  the  certifi 
cate  and  return,  precisely  the  same  in  character  that  they  had  holden  to  be 
conclusive  against  all  evidence  in  the  Florida  and  Louisiana  cases.  They 
adopted  and  acted  on  a  certificate  insufficient  if  they  regarded  their  former 
rulings,  under  any  law,  State  or  National. 

The  undersigned  denounce  the  Oregon  decision  as  utterly  at  war  with  and 
reversing  the  rule  established  in  the  two  former  cases,  and  because  it 
changes  the  law  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  case,  establishing  different  rules 
applicable  to  the  same  facts  to  bring  about  a  desired  result. 

In  the  Florida  case,  where  the  evidence  failed  to  establish  the  fact,  the 
majority  of  the  commission  voted  to  receive  evidence  to  prove  one  elector 
held  an  office  of  profit  and  trust  under  the  United  States  when  appointed. 

In  the  Louisiana  case,  where  there  was  no  doubt  that  two  electors  held 
such  offices  when  appointed,  it  was  voted  not  to  receive  evidence  of  the 
fact,  because  it  was  not  offered  to  be  proved  that  they  continued  to  hold 
such  offices  where  they  voted. 

Apparently,  the  rules  change  as  the  requirements  of  the  case  change. 
VOL.  II.  -28 


402  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE  N 


SOUTH   CAROLINA. 

In  South  Carolina  the  undersigned  voted  against  the  Tilden  electors 
being  declared  elected,  because  they  had  not  received  a  majority  of  the 
votes  of  the  people. 

In  that  case  it  was  offered  to  be  proved,  in  substance,  that  United  States 
troops  in  large  numbers  were  sent  to  the  State  before  the  election,  for  the 
purpose  of  influencing  and  controlling  the  votes  to  be  given  thereat,  by  in 
terfering  with  and  overawing  the  people,  and  that  the  militia  of  the  State 
was  used  for  the  same  purpose ;  that  the  polls  were  surrounded  by  armed 
bands,  who  by  violence  and  force  prevented  any  exercise  of  the  right  of 
suffrage  except  on  one  side ;  in  fact,  that  the  election  was  controlled  by  the 
armed  forces  of  the  State  and  Nation,  and  a  resort  to  all  manner  of  brutal 
ity,  violence,  and  cruelty,  and  was  not  free. 

The  majority  of  the  commission  refused  to  admit  the  evidence,  on 
grounds  that  would  fairly  warrant  a  President  of  the  United  States  in  using 
the  whole  army  to  take  possession  of  all  the  ballot-boxes  in  any  State,  and 
allow  no  voting  except  for  himself  if  he  was  a  candidate  for  reelection,  or 
for  his  party,  and  which  would  require  both  Houses  of  Congress  to  recount 
the  vote  so  obtained,  and  to  give  him  the  fruits  of  such  a  wilful  and  wicked 
violation  of  all  constitutional  law  and  right. 

If  any  decision  better  calculated  to  destroy  the  liberty  of  a  free  people, 
to  destroy  all  faith  in  a  Republican  form  of  government,  a  government  of 
the  people  by  the  people,  could  be  devised  and  contrived,  the  undersigned 
have  not  been  able  to  discover  it. 

They  denounce  the  decision  as  an  outrage  upon  the  rights  of  all  the 
people,  and,  if  sustained,  and  acted  on,  as  the  utter  ruin  of  our  institutions 
and  government. 

The  foregoing  is  a  brief  statement  of  the  action  of  the  commission.  To 
defeat  that  action  the  undersigned  have  done  all  in  their  power.  They  pro 
tested  against  it  before  it  was  accomplished,  and  they  protest  against  it  now. 

They  know  the  commission  was  established  to  receive  evidence,  not  to 
shut  it  out. 

They  know  the  conscience  of  this  great  people  was  troubled  by  fear  that 
any  one  should  obtain  the  high  office  of  President  by  fraud,  cheating,  and 
conspiracy,  and  that  it  demanded  that  the  charges  and  counter-charges  of 
corrupt  practices  in  reference  to  the  election  in  three  States  should  be  hon 
estly  investigated  and  inquired  into,  not  established  and  sanctified,  by  refus 
ing  all  inquiry  and  examination. 

They  know  the  conscience  of  the  whole  people  a^roved  the  law  estab 
lishing  the  commission,  nay,  hailed  it  with  joy,  because  it  established,  as 
all  believed,  a  fair  tribunal,  to  examine,  to  inquire  into,  and  determine  the 
charges  of  fraud  and  corruption  in  the  election  of  three  States ;  and  they 
believe  that  this  conscience  has  been  terribly  disappointed  and  shocked  by 
the  action  of  the  commission,  which  establishes  fraud  and  legalizes  its  per 
petration,  instead  of  inquiring  into  and  condemning  it. 


ADDRESS    OF   HON.  J.   G.  ABBOTT  403 

The  undersigned  believe  the  action  of  the  majority  of  the  commission  to 
be  wrong,  dangerous,  nay,  ruinous  in  its  consequences  and  effects. 

It  tends  to  destroy  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  States  and  of  the  United 
States  and  the  people  thereof ;  because  by  it  States  may  be  robbed  of  their 
votes  for  President  with  impunity,  and  the  people  of  the  United  States  have 
foisted  upon  them  a  chief  magistrate,  not  by  their  own  free  choice  honestly 
expressed,  but  by  practices  too  foul  to  be  tolerated  in  a  gambling  hell. 

By  the  action  of  the  commission  the  American  people  are  commanded  to 
submit  to  one  as  their  chief  magistrate  who  was  never  elected  by  their 
votes,  whose  only  title  depends  on  fraud,  corruption,  and  conspiracy. 

A  person  so  holding  that  great  office  is  a  usurper,  and  should  be  and 
will  be  so  held  by  the  people.  As  much  a  usurper  as  if  he  had  signed  and 
held  it  by  military  force ;  in  either  case,  he  equally  holds  against  the  con 
sent  of  the  people. 

Let  the  people  rebuke  and  overrule  the  action  of  the  commission.  The 
only  hope  of  the  country  rests  on  this  being  done,  and  done  speedily  and 
effectually,  so  that  it  may  never  become  a  precedent  to  sustain  wrong  and 
fraud  in  the  future. 

It  is  the  first  and  highest  duty  of  all  good  citizens  who  love  their  country 
to  right  this  foul  wrong,  as  soon  as  it  may  be  done  under  the  Constitution 
and  laws. 

Let  it  be  done  so  thoroughly,  so  signally,  so  effectually,  that  no  encour 
agement  shall  be  given  to  put  a  second  time  so  foul  a  blot  on  our  national 
escutcheon. 


APPENDIX    B 


PARTY   SENTIMENT   IN   FAVOR    OF     TILDEN'S    RENOMINATION    FOR    THE 
PRESIDENCY    IN    1884. 

THE  following  are  a  few  specimens  of  the  many  letters 
addressed  to  Mr.  Tilden  and  others,  urging  that  he  should  accept 
a  renomination. 

Lyman  Trumbull  to  S.  J.  Tilden. 

CHICAGO,  June  7,  1884. 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  The  Republicans  have  now  made  their  nominations  for 
President  and  Vice-President,  of  men  who  are  fair  representatives  of  the 
Republican  organization.  Their  election  means  a  continuance  of  the  par 
tisanship,  abuses,  corruptions,  and  centralizing  tendencies  of  the  last  twenty 
years,  which  you  and  I  both  believe  dangerous,  and  if  continued,  in  the  end 
destructive  of  Republican  liberty.  It  seems  to  me  the  patriotic  duty  of  all 
men  so  believing  to  sacrifice  all  personal  considerations  for  their  country's 
good. 

The  Democracy  all  over  the  land  are  looking  to  you  as  the  one  person 
above  all  others  to  lead  them  in  the  coming  political  contest.  The  only 
question  seems  to  be,  Will  you  consent  to  be  the  candidate?  I  know 
nothing  of  your  determination  except  what  may  be  gathered  from  the  con 
flicting  statements  of  the  press,  and  I  do  not  expect  or  ask  a  reply  to  my 
letter.  My  only  object  in  writing  is  to  urge  upon  you  the  duty  of  yielding 
to  the  united  demand  of  the  Democracy.  There  are  times  when  patriots 
must  not  hesitate,  if  necessary,  to  take  their  lives  in  their  hands  for 
liberty's  sake.  I  know  not  your  physical  condition,  but  mentally  you  are 
all  that  your  friends  require,  and  even  at  the  hazard  of  your  life,  I  believe 
it  your  duty  to  listen  to  the  united  voice  of  the  friends  of  constitutional 
liberty.  I  know  that  you  were  once  fairly  elected  President.  I  feel  con 
fident  that  you  can  be  again.  Whether  any  other  Democrat  can  be  is 
uncertain.  I  fear  not.  It  Avas  a  great  mistake  not  to  have  nominated  you 
four  years  ago.  I  felt  it  at  the  time.  The  country  now  sees  it. 

With  the  highest  regard  for  you  personally,  I  beg  of  you  to  let  us  make 
you  President  in  fact. 

W.  S.  Groesbeck  to  S.  J.  Tilden. 

CINCINNATI,  April  29,  1884. 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  I  have  felt  an  inclination  for  some  time  to  write  you  a 
letter  about  the  approaching  presidential  election. 


CLAMOR    FOR    TILDEN' S   DENOMINATION        405 


Moreover,  with  you  as  a  candidate,  the  campaign  of  1884  will  take  its 
complexion  and  character  from  yourself,  and  would  be  mainly  a  repetition 
of  the  campaign  of  1876.  "  Tilden  and  Reform  "  would  be  again  the  battle- 
cry,  and  the  fraud  of  '76  would  unite  and  arouse  the  Democracy  as  nothing 
else  would.  You  hold  this  great  card  in  your  hand.  No  one  else  has  it,  nor 
can  you  transfer  it  to  any  one  else. 

Some  of  the  papers  are  saying  you  do  not  feel  equal  to  a  renewal  of  the 
contest.  This  brings  me  to  what  I  desire  especially  to  submit  to  your  con 
sideration.  It  is  this :  The  contest  is  already  prepared.  We  will  fight 
again  the  battle  of  '76.  With  you  as  the  candidate,  the  preparations  for 
'84  are  complete.  The  people  will  ask  no  more  of  you  —  only  your  name 
and  battle-cry.  Don't  you  see  it?  The  campaign  of  '76  required  great 
labor.  You  performed  it  well  and  satisfactorily.  That  same  preparation 
is  at  hand  and  suitable  for  the  campaign  of  '84.  Your  work  is  already  done  ; 
you  may  rest,  as  it  were,  and  the  Democracy  will  fight.  So  it  seems  to  me. 

If  you  are  a  candidate,  you  will  be  elected.  Were  I  in  your  place,  I 
would  rather  be  President  a  single  day  and  die,  than  live  ten  years  without 
this  vindication.  It  is  true  that  every  hour  adds  to  the  number  of  those 
who  feel  that  you  were  wronged,  and  your  right  to  the  presidency  will  be 
affirmed  in  authentic  and  accepted  history ;  but  all  this  is  incomplete  and 
unsatisfactory  compared  with  a  triumphant  reelection  and  inauguration  into 
the  office.  Mr.  Tilden,  that  would  be  a  big  day  throughout  the  United 
States,  and  enough  to  quicken  you  into  a  new  life. 


John  A.  McClernand  to  S.  J.  Tilden. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  June  5,  1884. 
To  Kis  EXCELLENCY  SAMUEL   J.  TILDEN,  President-elect : 

DEAR  SIR  :  The  crime  which  defeated  the  will  of  the  people  in  1876,  and 
kept  you  from  exercising  the  presidential  office,  needs  to  be  avenged. 

Time,  and  your  example,  have  subdued  and  conciliated  all  factious  oppo 
sition  to  you  in  the  Democratic  party.  The  opponents  of  former  years  are 
now  your  most  noisy  partisans.  Your  nomination  in  July  will  follow  as  a 
spontaneous  and  consentaneous  act  unless  you  prevent  it. 

Preventing  it,  calamitous  consequences  must  ensue.  The  Democratic 
party  will  be  left  to  fall  into  strife,  anarchy,  and  impotency.  The  old 
guard  and  your  old  friends,  —  what  will  become  of  them?  The  barriers  to 
latitudinous  construction  will  be  broken  down,  and  license  given  to  public 
extravagance,  official  corruption,  and  the  greed  of  unscrupulous  and  pow 
erful  monopolies. 

Your  declination  is  inadmissible.  Accept  the  nomination,  even  if  death 
should  overcome  you  during  or  after  the  fight.  If  I  know  myself,  I  would, 
in  the  present  extremity  of  country  and  party,  suffer  the  martyrdom  for 
you,  vicariously,  if  it  was  possible  to  do  so. 


406  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

Excuse  the  freedom  and  energy  of  these  remarks.     They  proceed  from  a 
sense  of  duty.     I  have  done. 


Mary  P.  Hoadly  to  S.  J.  Tilden. 
(Personal.) 

MY  DEAR  GOVERNOR  TILDEN:  Will  you  pardon  me  for  taking  a  few 
moments  of  your  time  with  a  plea  for  our  country? 

The  nomination  of  Elaine,  with  his  great  popularity,  renders  it  necessary 
for  the  Democratic  party  to  put  forth  as  his  antagonist  its  strongest  man 
—  its  one  strong  man. 

Never  before  was  a  political  party  so  perfectly  unanimous  in  its  expres 
sions  of  confidence  and  fealty  as  the  Democratic  party  now  gives  to  you, 
and  your  consent  to  take  the  office  of  President  would  make  your  nomina 
tion  and  election  sure.  Of  no  other  Democrat  can  this  be  said. 

I  know  it  is  said  that  you  dread  the  fatigue  and  excitement  of  the  cam 
paign.  It  will  be  a  campaign  that  will  run  itself,  for  the  voters  will  be 
inspired  by  the  magic  of  your  name,  and  will  march  to  victory  without 
your  assuming  any  part  of  the  necessary  labor  attending  an  election. 
Your  friends  will  do  all  that  for  you  and  for  the  cause. 

But  even  admitting  that  your  health  might  suffer,  and  I  trust  that  would 
not  be  the  case,  is  not  this  a  time,  when  like  the  soldier  going  to  battle,  a 
man  ought  to  risk  even  his  life  for  his  country  ?  With  such  a  corrupt  ad 
ministration  as  Elaine  would  give  us,  and  four  years  more  of  the  Republi 
can  party,  getting  itself  still  more  firmly  entrenched,  what  hope  would 
there  ever  be  of  any  change  for  the  better  if  Samuel  J.  Tilden  refuses  to 
lead  the  hosts  of  his  party  ready  to  follow  him  to  the  death? 

Pardon  me  if  I  have  "  rushed  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread,"  but  —  do 
think,  and  before  positively  saying  "  No,"  try  if  it  be  not  possible  to  say 

"Yes." 

Very  cordially  your  friend  and  admirer, 

MARY  P.  HOADLY. 
COLUMBUS,  June  7,  1884. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  TILDEN  :  To  every  word  of  my  wife  I  say  AMEN  and 
AMEN. 

Your  friend, 

GEO.  HOADLY. 


Hermann  Lieb  to  S.  J.  Tilden. 

CHICAGO,  April  16,  1884. 

DEAR  SIR  :  Your  letter  to  the  Iroquois  Club  was  the  event  of  the  even 
ing,  and  forms  the  topic  of  conversation  among  Democrats  throughout  the 
city  to-day.  The  sentiment  for  your  renomination  is  growing  into  a  popular 
demand.  The  party  is  hopelessly  divided  upon  the  tariff  question,  and 


CLAMOR    FOR    TILDEN'S   RENOMINATION       407 

you  alone  can  unite  it  by  substituting  u  Vindication"  as  the  battle-cry  for 
the  campaign. 

Your  nomination  would  give  the  signal  to  a  resistless  onslaught  upon  the 
enemy's  entrenched  positions  upon  the  whole  line,  and  it  is  questionable 
whether  the  Republicans  could  save  the  electoral  vote  of  a  single  State. 
The  uprising  would  be  so  spontaneous  as  to  require  no  special  effort  on 
your  part,  and  the  drafting  of  the  national  platform  would  close  the 
personal  effort  on  your  part.  No  anxiety,  no  trouble  as  to  the  final  outcome 
of  the  struggle,  need  disturb  your  peace,  as  your  election  by  a  tremendous 
popular  vote  is  conceded  by  the  majority  of  Republicans. 

Do  not  stifle  this  generous  outburst  of  the  American  people  by  a  refusal 
to  allow  your  name  to  be  used  in  the  convention.  You  may  save  the 
Republic. 

"  La  patrie  est  en  danger  ! 
Elle  demande  la  sacrifice 
De  son  Jils  bien  aime  !  " 


Hon.  John  Campbell  to  8.  J.  Tilden. 

PITTSBURGH,  PA.,  June  8,  1884. 

DEAR  SIR  :  There  is  a  great  deal  of  doubt,  and  I  may  say  anxiety,  on 
the  part  of  the  masses  of  the  Democratic  and  Independent  voters  of  the 
country,  as  to  whether  you  will  accept  the  Democratic  nomination  for 
President  of  the  United  States. 

Without  any  desire  to  draw  you  out  on  this  subject,  I  thought  I  would 
write  to  you  and  urge  upon  you  the  great  importance  of  your  acceptance  of 
that  nomination  which  will  undoubtedly  be  unanimously  tendered.  In  the 
year  1876,  when  you  were  the  Democratic  standard-bearer,  I  was  chairman 
of  the  Republican  City  Central  Committee  at  Steubenville,  Ohio,  my  home, 
and  I  did  all  I  could  to  defeat  you,  and  honestly  believed  that  you  were 
defeated ;  but  later  events  satisfied  me,  and  I  may  say  thousands  of  others, 
that  you  were  cheated  out  of  the  presidency,  and  I  have  never  since  voted 
the  Republican  ticket.  Thousands  of  Independent  voters  are  waiting  a 
chance  to  do  what  they  can  to  right  the  wrong  that  was  done  in  1876.  But 
there  is  another  reason  why  you  should  again  consent  to  allow  your  name  to 
be  used.  The  people  are  tired  of  the  Republican  party  and  want  a  change, 
and  knowing  that  it  is  almost  beyond  their  power  to  dislodge  the  greedy 
hoard  of  office-holders,  who  have'  become  so  thoroughly  entrenched  that 
they  cannot  be  routed  unless  they  are  opposed  by  a  leader  who  is  considered 
almost  invincible,  —  they,  the  people,  demand  that  you  again  become  their 
standard-bearer.  In  my  capacity  as  late  chief  executive  officer  of  the 
Brotherhood  of  Telegraphers,  I  have  travelled  all  over  the  United  States, 
and  know  that  I  do  not  exaggerate  when  I  say  that  the  Democratic  voters 
are  unanimous  in  their  desire  that  you  once  more  sacrifice  your  comfort  and 
lead  them  to  victory;  and  they  confidently  expect  that  you  will  not  dis 
appoint  them. 


408  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL   J.    TILDE N 

Although  I  am  not  a  public  speaker,  I  flatter  myself  that  I  am  a  good 
organizer,  and  I  promise  you  that  I  will  do  all  in  my  power  to  assist  in  the 
campaign,  should  you  accept  the  nomination. 


G.  Albert  Cutler  to  S.  J.  Tilden. 

CHICAGO,  June  4,  1884. 

DEAR  SIR  :  As  a  Republican  of  thirty  years'  standing,  and  in  behalf  of 
thousands  of  Republicans  who  believe  you  were  fairly  elected  President  of 
the  United  States  eight  years  ago,  we  earnestly  beg  of  you  to  accept  the 
nomination  which  will  be  unanimously  tendered  you  by  a  convention  of 
white  men.  in  July  next.  Should  you  do  so,  we  promise  you  a  u  Tilden 
Club,"  not  only  in  Chicago,  but  in  every  locality,  composed  exclusively  of 
former  Republicans  who  desire  to  see  right  and  justice  vindicated,  and  who 
will  give  you  their  earnest  and  most  heartfelt  support. 


W.  L.  Scott  to  S.  J.  Tilden. 

ERIE,  PA.,  May  3,  1884. 


If  we  cannot  have  you  for  a  candidate,  I  give  up  all  hopes  of  ever  seeing 
a  Democrat  elected  President  of  the  United  States. 


Hon.  Samuel  J.  Randall  to  S.  J.  Tilden. 
HOUSE  or  REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON,  D.C.,  May  19,  1884. 

The  people  of  every  part  of  our  broad  country  are  of  one  voice  and 
opinion,  that  you  must  be  our  candidate.  You  will  have  to  yield,  and  you 
ought  to  do  so. 

Hon.  Geo.  S.  Converse  to  S.  J.  Tilden. 

HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON,  D.C.,  June  10,  1884. 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  In  confirmation  of  the  suggestions  I  made  to  you  a  week 
ago  Saturday,  that  the  masses  of  the  people  in  the  West  are  determined  to 
make  you  our  candidate  for  President,  I  wish  to  mention  the  fact  that  at  all 
of  the  congressional  conventions  which  have  been  held  in  Ohio,  resolutions 
have  been  adopted  in  your  favor.  A  more  significant  fact,  however,  is,  that 
every  county  convention  thus  far  held,  with  two  exceptions,  has  passed 
such  resolutions.  The  people  in  their  primary  conventions,  without  the 
consultation  of  politicians,  are  all  moving  in  one  direction.  Your  decli 
nation  must  not  be  thought  of.  A  triumphant  election  will  fellow  such 


CLAMOR    FOR    TILDENrS   RENOMINATION        409 

spontaneous  movement  of  the  masses.     Without  you,  divisions  will  arise 
in  our  party  which  are  liable  to  result  in  defeat. 


Cyrus  McCormick  to  S.  J.  Tilden. 

CHICAGO,  ILL.,  March  27,  1884. 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  I  venture  to  write  a  line  to  you  upon  a  subject  with 
which  your  name  has  been  connected  for  some  time  past,  with  such  com 
ments  as  seem  to  make  it  questionable  how  such  a  letter  as  this  may  be 
received  by  you.  From  our  past  relations,  however,  I  feel  that,  whatever 
others  may  say,  you  will  allow  me  to  express  my  sentiments  upon  this  sub 
ject,  not  doubting  their  earnestness  and  patriotism.  Permit  me,  then,  to 
say,  sir,  that  as  matters  now  stand,  Democratically  considered,  I  have  strong 
doubts  whether  your  nomination  by  the  Democratic  convention  is  not 
a  necessity  to  the  success  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  hence  that,  what 
ever  might  be  your  personal  feeling  on  that  question,  it  becomes  a  duty  you 
owe  to  the  country,  under  such  circumstances,  to  sacrifice  private  consid 
erations  for  so  momentous  an  object. 

You  have  once  been  elected  by  the  people  to  that  high  position,  but  were 
prevented  from  occupying  it  by  a  system  of  frauds  disgraceful  to  the 
country,  and  which  must  yet  recoil  upon  the  heads  of  the  party  leaders 
responsible  for  the  same;  while  the  cry  now  is  that  "Tilden  alone,  by 
being  reinstated,  can  save  the  Democratic  party  "  and  the  country. 

Some  have  called  for  "the  old  ticket;  "  but  my  own  humble  impression 
is  that  "Tilden  and  McDonald"  would  be  most  acceptable  to  the  Demo 
cratic  party  and  to  the  whole  people,  East  and  West. 

Unable,  myself,  for  some  time  to  take  an  active  part  in  politics,  while 
with  an  interest  unabated  in  the  prosperity  of  our  great  country,  agitated 
as  it  now  is  through  conflicting  views  of  politicians  on  local  issues,  I  have 
felt  unable  to  restrain  myself  from  giving  expression  to  these  sentiments 
towards  one  who,  I  feel,  has  the  ability  and  the  patriotism  to  steer  the 
noble  old  Democratic  ship  through  the  breakers  which  again  threaten  her 
destruction.1 

lion.  J.  R.  Tucker  to  S.  J.  Tilden. 

WASHINGTON,  June  13,  1884. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  TILDEN  :  I  have  never  sought  to  intrude  myself  upon 
your  consideration  during  your  eminent  career,  which  by  your  late  letter 
is  declared  to  be  closed  forever.  But  I  cannot  forbear  to  express  my  sin 
cere  admiration  of  the  dignity  and  magnanimity  of  the  utterance  with  which 
you  have  made  it  known  to  your  country. 

No  man  in  this  era  of  our  history  has  filled  so  distinguished  a  position  in 
the  eyes  of  his  country  as  you  have  done  and  now  do.  In  the  comprehen 
sion  of  its  needs,  in  the  clear  and  analytic  investigation  of  political  truth, 

1  Mr.  McCormick  died  shortly  after  this  letter  was  written. 


410  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

and  in  the  formulation  of  the  statements  of  political  philosophy,  you  stand,  in 
my  judgment,  without  a  peer  among  our  statesmen.  But  in  practical  ad 
ministration,  in  the  adaptation  of  sound  political  doctrines  to  the  affairs  of 
State,  in  shaping  public  policy  according  to  the  rules  of  political  science, 
you  have  exhibited  qualities  which,  had  Providence  called  you,  as  the  voice 
of  your  country  did,  to  the  presidency,  would  have  made  your  term  of 
service  one  of  the  most  memorable  and  illustrious  in  our  history. 

Fate  has  denied  to  your  country  the  benefit  of  your  eminent  abilities ; 
but  history  will  never  fail  to  name  you  as  the  statesman  who  in  our  day 
best  deserved  the  highest  place  to  which  American  ambition  aspires,  and 
whose  noble  utterance  in  your  act  of  voluntary  retirement  has  kindled 
anew  the  admiration  of  the  people,  and  moved  the  deepest  sensibilities  of 
their  hearts. 

My  praise  is  unstinted,  because  bestowed  on  one  who  can  offer  me 
nothing  but  respect  for  its  sincerity.  You  will  do  me  the  justice  to  believe 
it  would  not  have  been  offered  under  other  circumstances. 

I  can  only  hope  that  a  kind  Providence  may  continue  your  health  and 
life  to  see  and  rejoice  in  the  triumph  of  your  principles  and  policy,  though 
through  other  hands  than  your  own,  upon  which  alone  can  be  based  the 
security  of  our  liberties  and  the  promotion  of  good  government  and  the 
prosperity  and  glory  of  our  common  country. 


Hon.  Thomas  Ewing  to  S.  J.  Tilden. 

NEW   YORK,  June  13,  1884. 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  The  statement  in  the  enclosed  slip  from  the  u  Tribune," 
that  I  have  intimated  that  you  would  use  your  influence  in  favor  of  Cleve 
land,  is  absolutely  unfounded.  It  is  a  matter  of  no  consequence  to  you 
whether  it  be  true  or  not,  but  it  is  to  me,  as  I  don't  want  to  seem  as  un 
worthy  of  your  uniform  courtesy  and  consideration  as  such  loose-tongued 
talk  would  make  me  appear. 

The  outburst  of  affection  for  you  and  regret  at  your  retirement,  which 
your  letter  evokes,  reminds  me,  by  contrast,  of  an  interesting  incident  in 
the  close  of  Mr.  Webster's  political  career.  The  evening  of  the  day  on 
which  he  was  beaten  by  Scott  for  the  Whig  nomination  in  1852,  myself  and 
some  other  young  gentlemen  in  Washington  manifested  our  sympathy  and 
respect  by  a  serenade.  In  the  course  of  a  beautiful  and  touching  response 
he  said:  "Ah!  my  young  friends,  politicians  are  not  sunflowers.  They  do 
not 

"  '  Turn  on  their  god  when  he  sets 

The  same  look  which  they  gave  when  he  rose ! '" 

What  a  contrast  between  your  retiremant  from  public  life  and  that  of 
Mr.  Webster!  He  went  out  after  seeking  the  presidency  in  vain,  dejected 
and  broken-hearted,  while  you  voluntarily  decline  a  unanimous  nomina 
tion  and  an  assured  election. 

With  best  wishes  for  your  health  and  happiness,  I  am,  etc. 


APPENDIX    C 


MISS  GOULD'S   LIST   OF  THE   BOOKS  READ  TO   MR.  TILDEN  DURING 
THE  LAST  FOUR  YEARS  OF  HIS  LIFE. 

14  EAST  FIFTY-THIRD  STREET, 

Dec.   12,  1893. 

DEAR  MR.  BIGELOW  :  I  enclose  the  copy  of  the  list  of  books 
which  I  read  at  "  Graystoue."  In  addition  to  it  were  all  the 
monthly  and  quarterly  magazines.  Often  the  entire  number  of 
an  English  quarterly  would  take  more  time  than  a  biography  or 
novel.  Then  the  encyclopedia  was  almost  daily  in  hand.  Cer 
tain  of  Macaulay's  essays  were  read  over  and  over  again.  Then 
guide-books  had  an  important  place,  and  were  read  over  and 
over  in  connection  with  travels,  etc. 

One  reason  the  number  of  books  read  in  '86  was  smaller  than 
in  '82  was  that  Mr.  Tilden  was  working  on  his  ancestral  list, 
and  much  of  the  time  went  to  reading  and  working  on  that 
subject. 

Yours, 

ANNA  T.  GOULD. 


1882. 
April. 

Life  of  John  Stuart  Mill.  Bain. 

Life  of  James  Mill.  Bain. 

Life  of  Jeremy  Bentbam.     2  vols. 

Bowring. 

Correspondence  of  McVey  Napier. 
Caroline  Fox's  Letters.  2  vols.  Pym. 


A  Good-Natured  Man. 


Goldsmith. 


She  Stoops  to  Conquer. 
History  of  Russia.  (Part  of  Vol.  1.) 
The  Burgomaster's  Wife.  Ebers. 
Carlyle's  Life.  Froude. 

Carlyle's  Reminiscences.        Froude. 
Wicklif's  Place  in  History. 
English  History.     2  vols.         Green. 
Molinos.  John  Bigelow. 

May. 

Charles  L,  Fall  of  Monarchy.  2  vols. 
Gardiner. 


Autobiography  of  J.  S.  Mill.      Mill. 

Three  years  in  Norway. 

History  of  Champagne.          Vizitelli. 

Hesperathon.  2  vols.  W.  II.  RusselL 

Obelisks.  Gorringe. 

Senior  and  Tocqueville,  Correspond 
ence.  2  vols. 

Ballantyne's  Experience.     2  vols. 

Life  of  George  Grote.          //.  Grote. 

Conversations  of  Distinguished  Men. 
2  vols.  Senior  Simpson. 

Correspondence  of  Talleyrand  and 
Louis  XVIII. 

Caroline  von  Linsingen  and  Wm.  IV. 

Memoirs  of  A.  de  Tocqueville  and 
Letters.  2  vols.  Beaumont. 

Mctternich,   Correspondence. 

Baron  Stein,  Correspondence. 

History  of  Constitution  of  United 
States.  2  vols.  Bancroft. 


412 


THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 


June. 

"Writings  of  Albert  Gallatin.     2  vols. 
77.  Adams. 

Life  of  Albert  Gallatin.     II.  Adams. 
Writings  of  Madison.     4  vols. 
The  Old  regime.     A.  de  Tocqueville. 
Life  and   Letters   of   Robertson.     2 

vols.  S.  Brooke. 

Lives  of  Burke,  Fox,  etc. 
Conversations  with   Thiers,    Guizot, 

etc.    2  vols.  Senior. 

July. 

Life  of  the  Prince  Consort.     2  vols. 
Martin. 

History  of  England.     2  vols.   Lecky. 
Bismarck's  Letters. 
The  Story  of  Avis.  E.  Phelps. 

John  Inglesant.  Shorthouse. 

Milton,  Life  and  Times.     G  vols. 

Masson. 
August. 

Ben  Jonson's  Works. 
Life  of  Lord  Lyndhurst.      Campbell. 
History  of  France.     Vols.  1,  2,  4,  5, 

6.  Guizot. 

Anne  of  Geierstein.         Walter  Scott. 

France  under  Richelieu  and  Colbert. 

Bridges. 

September. 

International  Episode.  II.  James. 
Daisy  Miller.  11.  James. 

Golden  Rod. 

Andrew  Jackson,  Life  of.     Sumner. 

Henry  Erskine,  Kinship  and  Times. 

Ferguson. 

Anne.  C.  F.  Woolson. 

Gray,  Life  of.  Gosse. 

Recollections  of  Military  Service  and 

Society.     2  vols.  Ramsay. 

History  of  My  Time.  4  vols.  Guizot. 
Embassy  to  Court  of  St.  James. 

Guizot. 

Corneille  and  His  Time.  Guizot. 
Shakespeare  and  His  Time.  Guizot. 
Biographical  and  Critical  Essays.  3 

vols.  A.  Hay  ward. 

A  Chance  Acquaintance.        Howells. 

October. 

Fashionable  Women.     2  vols. 

Davenport- Adams. 
Life  of  Alexander  Hamilton.  Lodge. 
English  Party  Leaders.  2  vols. 

Davenport- Adams. 
II.  Martineau,  Autobiography.  2 
vols. 


Journal  and  Correspondence  of  Miss 

Berry.     3  vols.         Theresa  Leu-is. 

The  Salon  of  Mme.  Neckar.     2  vols. 

D'Ifausonville. 

The  Friendship  of  M.  R.  Mitford.     2 
vols.  IS  Estrange. 

Outlines  of  Life  of  Shakespeare. 

Hallowell-Phillipps. 

November. 

Short  History  of  French  Literature. 
Saintsbury. 

Life  of  John  Randolph.  Adams. 

New  England  Federalism.  Adams. 
Life  of  Gibbon.  Morison. 

Rochefoucault's  Travels  (1795-6-7). 

2  vols. 
Marquis    de   Chastellux    (1780-1-2). 

2  vols. 
Letters  of  a  Traveller. 

W.  C.  Bryant. 
What  I  saw  in  California.     Vol.  1. 

E.  Bryant. 
The  French  Court.     2  vols. 

Lady  Jackson. 

Life  of  Samuel  Johnson.    Vols.  1,  4, 
5,  G.  Boswell. 

December. 

German  Life  and  Literature.     2  vols. 
Alex-Japp. 

Shelley  and  Mary  Wollstonecraft. 
French  Men  of  Letters.  Mauris. 

Quits.  2  vols.  Baroness  Tautphoeus. 
Life  of  Macaulay.  Morison. 

Initials.  2  vols.  Baroness  Tautphceus. 
Pepy's  Life  and  World.  Whateley. 
Life  of  Samuel  Johnson. 

Leslie  Stephen. 

The  Reign  of  Queen  Anne.     Vol.  1. 
Ashton. 

Macaulay's  Essays.     2  vols. 
Court  Life  Below  Stairs.     2  vols. 

Fitzgerald  Molloy. 
A  Modern  Instance.  Howells. 

Dukes  and  Princesses  in  the  Family 
of  George  III.     2  vols. 

Percy  Fitzgerald. 

My  Life  and  Writings.  Arch.  Allison. 
Reign  of  George  II.  Vol.  1. 

//.  Walpole. 
Memoirs  of  H.  Walpole.     2  vols. 

Warburton. 

History  of  French  Literature.     Vol. 
3.  Van  Laun. 

French  Society.  2  vols.  Baker. 
Mme.  de  Sevigne.  2  vols. 

Countess  Puliga. 


TILDEN'S    READING 


413 


1883. 
January. 

Mrs.  Fletcher,  Autobiography. 
Heart  of  Steel.  G.  Reid. 

Dumont's  Recollections  of  Mirabeau. 
Valerie  Aylmer.  C,  Reid. 

London  to  John  o'  Groats. 

E.  Burritt. 

Confidence.  II.  James. 

Macaulay's     History     of     England. 

Vol.  3. 
Tom  Moore,  Mem.,  Jour.,  and  Cor. 

Vols.  2,  3,  5,  G,  7.  J.  Russell. 

Tom  Moore,  Mem.,  Jour.,  and  Cor., 

Vols.  1,  2,  4,  8.  J.  Russell. 

Dr.  Faustus. 

Lalla  Ilookh,  etc.  T.  Moore. 

Washington  Irving,  Life  and  Letters. 

Vols.  1,  2,  3,  4.  Irving. 

February. 

Hawthorne's  English  Note-Book.     2 
vols. 

Newstead  Abbey,   Abbotsford,    etc. 
Vol.  1.  Irving. 

Pioneer.  Cooper. 

Doctor  Zay.  E.  Phelps. 

Margravine  of  Baireuth,  Autobiog 
raphy.     2  vols. 

Columbus  and  Friends.     Vols.  1,  2. 
Irving. 

Health  Resorts.  Burney  Yeo. 

Mr.  Isaacs.  F.  M.  Crawford. 

Lady  Cowper's  Diary. 

Rheinsberg.     Vols.  1,  2.     Hamilton. 

Men  and  Times  of  the  Revolution. 

Elk.  Watson. 

Life  of  James  Monroe.  Oilman. 

Elective  Affinities,  Werther,  etc. 

Goethe. 

Life  of  James  Mackintosh.     Vol.  2. 

Memoirs  of  Mrs.  Schuyler. 

Mrs.  Grant. 
March. 

Rush's   Residence   at  the   Court    of 
London.  Rush. 

Souvenirs  of  Mme.  Vigce  Le  Brun. 

Diary  of   Court  Life,  George  IV.    3 
vols.  Lady  Bury. 

Letters  of  G.  C.  Lewis. 

An  American  Lady.          Mrs.  Gray. 

The    People    of  the  United   States. 
Vol.  1.  Me  Masters. 

Hawthorne's  Italian  Note-Books. 

Dangeau's  Court  of  France.     2  vols. 

Life  of  J.  Fenirnore  Cooper. 

Lounsbury. 


Red  Rover.  J.  F.  Cooper. 

Figures  of  the  Past.    Josiah  Quincy. 
Life  of  Wordsworth.  Myers. 

Siege  of  London,  etc.          II.  James. 
Eras  and  Characters  of  History. 

Williams. 
A  Gentle  Savage.  Edw.  King. 

Life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.        Button. 

April. 

Life  of  Wm.  C.  Bryant.     Vol.  2. 

P.  Godwin. 

Life  of  John  Dryden.       Saintsbury. 
Life  of  Charles  Lamb.  Ainger. 

Louis    XIV.  and  Court   of   France. 
Vols.  1,  2,  3.  Miss  Par  doe. 

Letters  of  Jane  Carlyle.     2  vols. 

Froude. 
Secret  Memories  of  Louis  XIV. 

Duchess  of  Orleans. 
Reminiscences  of  Lord  John  Russell. 
Walpole's  Letters.     Vol.  1. 
Memories    of  Louis  XVIII. 's  Court. 
2  vols.  A  Lady. 

Mme.  Recamier's  Memoirs.  Luyster. 
Mme.  Recamier  and  Friends. 

Luyster. 

Louis    XIV.  and    Court  of   France. 
Vols.  4,  5,  6.  Miss  Par  doe. 

Mme.  Swetchine. 

Thiers'   Consulate  and  the  Empire. 

Vol.  1,  2.  Thiers. 

The  Youth  of  Mme.  de  Longueville. 

Victor  Cousin. 

The  Friendship  of  Women. 

W.  R.  Alger. 
Life  of  Thomas  Jefferson. 

J.  I.  Morse. 
May. 

Life  of  Napoleon.     Vols.  1,  2,  3,  4. 
Las  Casas. 
Napoleon  in  Exile.     2  vols. 

O'Meara. 
Last  Days  of  Napoleon.     2  vols. 

Automachi. 

Life  of  Audubon.  Buchanan. 

Adams,  John,  Letters. 
Memoirs  of  Napoleon.     2  vols. 

D'Alrantes. 
June. 
Recollections  of  Dean  Stanley. 

Bradley. 
Life  of  Mme.  de  Stael.     2  vols. 

Stevens. 

Duchess  of  Marlborough. 
Accounts  of  Conduct  of  Duchess  of 
Marlborough. 


414 


THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 


Gray  Studies.  J.  R.  Green. 

Four   Georges  and  English  Humor 
ists.  Thackeray. 

July. 

Memoir  of  S.  R.  Steele.     Vol.  1. 

Montgomery. 

Lord    Holland's    Foreign    Reminis 
cences. 

H.  Walpole's  Letters.     Vols.  5,  6,  7. 
Life  of  Charles  J.  Fox.  Russell. 

Early  History  of  C.  J.  Fox. 

Trevelyan. 
Three  Criticisms  on  Life  of  Wilber- 

force. 

Two  Criticisms  on  J.  R.  Green. 
Life  of  Lord  Lawrence.     2  vols. 

B.  Smith. 

Three  Criticisms  on  Lord  Lawrence. 
Life  of  Lord  Shelburne.     Vol.  3. 

Fitz  Ma  u  rice . 

Reminiscences    of     Ronald    Gower. 
2  vols.  Gower. 

Life  and  Mission  of  Swedenborg. 

Worcester. 

August. 

Court  of  the  Regency.     2  vols. 

B  uckingham . 
Life  of  Francis  Homer. 
Life  of  Samuel  Romilly.     2  vols. 

His  Sons. 
History  of  Reign  of  Queen  Anne. 

Stanhope. 

History  of  England.  Mahon. 

Leaves  from  H.  Greville's  Journal. 
Life  of  Lord  Brougham.      Campbell. 
Diary  of  Court  of  George  IV.  Vols. 

3,  4.  Gait,  editor. 
Historical  Study  of  Edmund  Burke, 

Morley. 

Life  of  Prince  Consort.     Vols.  1,  2. 
Martin. 
September. 
Life   of  Prince   Consort.      Vols.  3, 

4,  5.  Martin. 
Baron  Stockmar,  Memoir  of.   2  vols. 

Max  Muller. 
Life  of  Bismarck. 

Tr.,  Hezekiel  Mackenzie. 

Life   of  Lord  Palmerston.      2  vols. 

Evelyn  Ashley. 

Life  of  Adolphe  Thiers.          LeGoff. 
Consulate  and  Empire.     Vols.  G,  7. 
Thiers. 
October. 

Court  of  James  I.  Lucy  Aiken. 

Court  of  Charles  II.        Lucy  Aiken. 


The  Pilot.  J.  F.  Cooper. 

History  of  American  Navy.     Vol.  1. 
J.  F.  Cooper, 

Memoirs  of  Baroness  Bunsen. 

A.  Hare. 

Royal    and    Republican  France.      2 
vols.  //.  Reeve. 

Mrs.  Piozzi.     Vol.  1. 

Mrs.    Adams,    Journal    and    Corre 
spondence. 

J.    Adams   and  Wife,  Familiar  Let 
ters. 

November. 

George   Selwyn  and  His  Contempo 
raries.     4  vols.  Jesse. 

Roger's  Table  Talk. 

Life  of  Cranmer.  Gilpin. 

Life   of    John    Quincy   Adams.     12 
vols.  C.  F.  Adams. 

Nooks  and  Corners  in  England. 

Timls. 

Life  of  John  Huss.  Gilpin. 

John  Adams,  Life  and  Works.    Vol. 
3.  C.  F.  Adams. 

December. 

Wraxhall's  Memoirs.      2  vols. 
Life  of  B.  Franklin.  Parton. 

Memoirs  of   Geo.  III.     Vols.   1,  3. 

Jesse. 

Memoirs   of   George   III.     Vol.    3. 
Buckingham. 

Life  of  Andrew  Jackson.     Vols.  1,  3. 
Parton. 
1884. 
January. 

Works   of  Brougham.     Vols.    3,  5. 
Brougham. 

Life   and   Correspondence   of    John 
Adams.     Vols.  9,  10,  11.    Adams. 
Huguenots.  Smiles. 

Life  of  Lord  Lyndhurst.          Martin. 
Court  and  Diplomatic  Life. 

Lady  Bloomjield. 

Life  of  E.  Bulwer-Lytton.     2  vols. 
"  Son." 
Marie  Antoinette.     2  vols.   Campan. 

February. 

Royal  Windsor.     4  vols.          Dixon. 
Portraits  of  Places.  //.  James. 

The  Mohicans.  J.  F.  Cooper. 

Memoirs   of  House   of    Orleans.     3 
vols.  Taylor. 

Early  Years  of  My  Life.    Albemarle. 
Court  of  the  Tuileries.     2  vols. 

Jackson. 


TILDE N''S   READING 


415 


Revolt  of  the  Netherlands.  Schiller. 
Diaries  of  a  Lady  of  Quality. 

March. 

More  Leaves  from  the  Highlands. 

Queen  Victoria. 

But  Yet  a  Woman.  Hardy. 

Berlin  Society. 

A   Woman's    Memories    of    World- 
Known  Men.  Houston. 
Address  before  Vermont   Historical 
Society  on  Taking  of  Ticonderoga. 
MS.    '                               Chittenden. 
Diary  of  William  Tylden,  1815.   MS. 
Tylden. 

Travels  in  Greece,   Poland,   Russia, 

etc.     2  vols.  Stephens. 

Regency  of  Anne  of  Austria.    2  vols. 

Frere. 

Gil  Bias.     3  vols.  Le  Sage. 

Tr.,  Malkin. 

History  of  United  States.     Vols.  3, 

4,  5,  G,  7.  Bancroft. 

April. 

Life  of  Philip  Schuyler.     2  vols. 

Lossing. 
Life  and  Times  of  General  Lamb. 

Leake. 
Annals  of  Tryon  County. 

William  Campbell. 

Memoirs  of  William  Wirt.     2  vols. 

Kennedy. 

Tancred,  or  New  Crusade.     Disraeli. 
Charles   Townsend,  Wit  and  States 
man.  Fitzgerald. 
Old  Merchants  of  New  York.     Vols. 
1,  3.  Barrett. 
Life  of  Cowper.                       Southey. 
Gray's  Letters.     Vols.  1,  3. 

Pickering. 
Life  of  John  Adams.     Vol.  1. 

C.  F.  Adams. 
Treason  of  Charles  Lee.  Moore. 

May. 

Her  Dearest  Foe.  Mrs.  Alexander. 
Life  of  Edward  Livingston.  Hart. 
Historical  Studies.  Cabot  Lodge. 

Life  of  Rufus  Choate.  E.  G.  Parker. 
Henry  V.  Towle. 

Curwen's  Journal  and  Letters.  Ward. 
Reminiscences  of  George  Washing 
ton.  Custis. 
Choate.  Vol.  1.  S.  G.  Brown. 
Germany.  De  Stael. 
Roderick  Hudson.  Henry  James. 


Old  Ma'mselle's  Secret.  Marlitt. 

Life  of  James  Otis.  Tudor. 

American  Biography.  Vol.  1.    Stark, 
Montgomery,  Allen. 

Edited  by  Sparks. 

American  Biography.  Allen  and  Put 
nam.     Vol.  7.  J.  Sparks. 

American  Biography.  Steuben.    Vol. 
9.  J.  Sparks. 

American     Biography.    Wayne   and 
Vane.     Vol.  4.  Sparks. 

American  Biography.  Boone.  Sparks. 

American  Biography.  Preble.  Sparks. 

American  Biography.  Oglethorpe. 

Sparks. 

American  Biography.  Pulaski. 

Sparks. 

June. 

American  Biography.     Decatur  and 

R.  Williams.  Sparks. 

American  Biography.    La  Salle. 

Sparks. 

Deerslayer.  J.  F.  Cooper. 

Republican  Court. 
American  Biography.    Charles  Lee. 
Sparks. 

Pathfinder.  J.  F.  Cooper. 

American    Biography.      John    Led- 

yard.  Sparks. 

American  Biography.      Jacob   Leis- 

ler.  Sparks. 

Through  Belgium  and  France  in  the 

Ytene.  Mo  ens. 

In  the  Ardennes.  K.  Macquoid. 

Quentin  Durward.  W.  Scott. 

Old  Merchants  of  New  York.     Vol. 

2.  Barrett. 

July. 

Vanity  Fair.  Thackeray. 

Ivanhoe.     2  vols.  W.  Scott. 

Waverley.     2  vols.  W.  Scott. 

Old  Mortality.  IF.  Scott. 

Peveril  of  the  Peak.    2  vols. 

W.  Scott. 
Life  and  Times   of  William  IV.     2 

vols.  P.  Fitzgerald. 

Northern  Heights  of  London. 

Hewitt. 
History  of  City  of  New  York.    Vols. 

1,  2.  M.  Lamb. 

A  Voyage  in  the  u  Sunbeam." 

Brassey. 
August. 

The  Dutchman's  Fireside.    2  vols. 

F.  K.  Paulding. 

The  Fate  of  Mansfield  Humphreys. 
R.  G.  White. 


416 


THE    LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 


History  of  New  York  City.     Vol.  3. 
M.  Lamb. 

Our  Chancellor.  Busch. 

Life  of  Chaucer.     Vols.  2,  3,  4. 

Godwin. 

History  of  New  York  City.     Vol.  4. 
M.  Lamb. 

History  of  New  York.  2  vols.  Jones. 
Wilhelm  Meister.  Goethe. 

Georgina's  Reasons  and  Pandora. 

//.  James. 

Life  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.     2  vols. 
St.  John. 
Letters  of  the  Princess  Alice. 

Helena. 

Bolingbroke,    Political     Study     and 
Criticism.  R.  Harrop. 

September. 

General   Hull's    Civil    and    Military 
Life.  Campbell  and  Clark. 

Reign  of  Henry  VIII.     2  vols. 

Brewer. 

German  Tales.  Auerbach. 

^History  of  England.     Vols.  1,  2. 

Macaulay, 

History  of  England.     Vols.  1,  2,  3. 
J.  R.  Green. 

The  Greatest  of  the  Plantagenets. 
Men     and     Events     of     My     Time 
(India).  Sir  R.  Temple. 

Cardinal  Wolsey  and  His  Time. 

Howard. 

History  of  England.  Vol.  4.  Green. 
History  of  Philadelphia. 

Scharf  and  Westcott. 

Lord  Hubert,  Autobiography. 

Life    of     Mounstuart    Elphinstone. 

Vol.  2.  Colebrook. 

Thirty  Years'  War.          J.  R.  Green. 

October. 

Biographical  Studies.       W.  Bagehot. 

History  of  England.     Vols.  1  to  12. 

Fronde. 

Oriental  Experience.  Sir  R.  Temple. 
Princesses  of  England. 

A.  Strickland. 

Queens  of  England.  Wives  of  Henry 
VIII.  A.  Strickland. 

Queen  Elizabeth.  A.  Strickland. 
The  Real  Lord  Byron.  Jeafferson. 
Carlyle.  Vols.  3  and  4.  Froude. 
Life  of  Walter  Scott.  T.  Carlyle. 
Varnhagen  von  Ense.  T.  Carlyle. 
Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson. 

T.  Carlyle. 
Voltaire.  T.  Carlyle. 


IVovember. 

French  Revolution.     2  vols. 

T.  Carlyle. 
Posthumous    Memoirs    of    Karoline 

Bauer.     Vol.  2. 

French  Revolution.  Vol.  1.  Thiers. 
History  of  France.  Vols.  1,  2. 

Martin. 
Old  World  Questions  and  New  World 

Answers.  Pidgeon. 

Fifty  Years'  Observation  of  Men  and 

Events.  Keyes. 

Leaves  from  Diary  of    H.    Greville. 

Enfield. 

Retrospect  of  a  Long  Life.  S.  C.  Hall. 
The  Young  Duke.  Disraeli. 

Life  of  S.  T.  Coleridge.  Trail!. 

Vivian  Grey.  Disraeli. 

Croker's  Correspondence  and  Diaries. 

Vols.  1,  2.  Jennings. 

December. 

Tales  of  Three  Cities.         //.  James. 

Napoleon  I.    Letters  and  Despatches. 
3  vols.  Bingham. 

Montcalm  and  Wolfe.     2  vols. 

Parkman. 

Croker's  Correspondence  and  Diaries. 
Vol.  3.  Jennings. 

Historical  Characters.       H.  Buliver. 

France,    Social,  Literary,  and  Politi 
cal.  //.  Buliver. 

Coningsby.  Disraeli. 

Lothair.  Disraeli. 

Endymion.  Disraeli. 

Marcus  Aurelius.  Watson. 

1885. 
January. 

Life  of  Bolingbroke.  Campbell. 

Life  of  Lord  Brougham.  Campbell. 
Life  and  Times  of  Lord  Brougham. 

Vol.  1.  Brougham. 

Life  of  Lord  Eldon.  Campbell. 

Memoirs  of  Lord  Abinger.  Scarlett. 
Denman.  2  vols.  J.  Arnold. 

Life  of  Lord  Camden.  Campbell. 
Life  of  Charles  Yorke.  Campbell. 
Life  of  Thurlow.  Campbell. 

Life  of  Lord  Erskine.  Campbell. 
Life  and  Times  of  Thos.  Jefferson. 

Vol.  1.  Randall. 

February. 

Life    and    Times    of   T.   Jefferson. 

Vols.  2,  3.  Randall. 

Speech  on  Lafayette.     J.  Q.  Adams. 


TILDEN'S   READING 


417 


Sandwich  Islands.  Cheever 

Paradise  in  the  Pacific. 

Wm.  R.  Bliss 
The  Solitary  of  Juan 'Fernandez. 

Saintine. 

Jamaica.  John  Bigelow. 

Lincoln  and  Seward.     Gideon  Welles. 
Lord      George    Bentwiek,    Political 
Biography.  Disraeli. 

Polynesian  Researches.     Vol.  1. 

Ellis. 

March, 

Life  of  George  Eliot.     3  vols. 

J.   W.  Cross. 

Trades,  Tropics,  etc.  Lady  Brassey. 
Edgar  Allan  Poe.  Geo.  E.  Woodbury. 
Memoirs  of  an  Ex-Minister. 

Malmsbury. 
Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

/.  N.  Arnold. 
Storm  and  Sunshine  in  the  East. 

Lady  Brassey. 
George  Cabot,  Life  and  Letters. 

//.  C.  Lodge. 
A  Voyage  in  the  u  Sunbeam." 

Lady  Brassey. 
Hayti,  or  the  Black  Republic. 

Sir  Spencer  St.  John. 

Jefferson's  Complete  Works.     Vols. 

4,5.  If.  A.  Washington. 

April. 

Mill  on  the  Floss.  George  Eliot. 

Jefferson's  Works.     Vols.  6,  7. 

Bloomfield  at  Court   of  Sweden.     2 
vols.  Lady  Bloomfield. 

Magazine  of  American  History,  1834. 
2  vols.  M.  Lamb. 

Henry    Taylor,    Autobiography.      2 
vols. 

India,  Men  and  Times. 

Sir  R.  Temple. 

The  Russians  at  the  Gate  of  Herat. 
Chas.  Marvin. 

American  Political  Ideas. 

John  Fiske. 

Magazine  of  American  History,  1883. 
2  vols.  M.  Lamb. 

Afghanistan  and  Anglo-Russian  Dis 
putes.  Theo.  Rodenburgh. 

May. 

Life  of  N.  P  Willis. 

Henry  A.  Beers. 
Life  of  Samuel  Adams. 

James  K.  Ilosmer. 
VOL.  II.  — 27 


Life  of  R.  Waldo  Emerson. 

O.  W.  Holmes. 
Magazine  of  American  History,  1879- 

80-81.  3  vols.  M.  Lamb,  editor. 
Russia  under  the  Tzars.  Stepniak. 
New  York  during  the  American 

Revolution. 

Type.  Herman  Melville. 

Magazine   American    History,    1878. 

1  vol.  M.  Lamb. 

South  Sea  Bubbles. 
The   Earl   and    Doctor.       (Earl    of 

Pemberton.) 
Journal  of  a  Cruise   in   the  Pacific 

Ocean.    Vol.  2.         David  Porter. 


June. 

Sandwich  Islands.  Cheever. 

Stewart's  Visit  to  the  South  Seas.   2 

vols.  Stewart. 

Jacob  Barker,  Incidents  of  Life  of. 

New  Zealand  and  South  Sea  Islands. 

Meade. 

Six  Months  in  the  Sandwich  Islands. 
/.  Bird. 

A  Faggot  of  French  Sticks,  or  Paris 

in  1851.  Sir  Thomas  Head. 

Home  Letters,  1830-1831.    Disraeli. 

Personal     Recollections      of     Lord 

Cloncurry. 

Antiquities  of  Long  Island.  Furman. 
The  Pattern  on  the  Mount. 

C.  H.  Farkhurst. 
Bubbles  —  Brunnen  of  Nassau. 

Sir  Thomas  Head. 

Incidents  of  Travel  in  Egypt,  Arabia, 

Petraea,  and  the  Holy  Land.  2  vols. 

John  Loyd  Stephens. 

July. 

Lafayette.     Memoirs.     2  vols. 

B.  Sauans. 
Mile.  Rachel.      Memoirs.     2  vols. 

Mme.  de  B. 
Incidents  of  Travel  in  Central  Amer 
ica.     2  vols.  J.  L.  Stephens. 
Compendium     of     Geography     and 
Travel,  Central    Asia,  etc. 

//.  W.  Bates. 

ompendium     of     Geography     and 
Travel,    Europe. 

Sir  A.  C.  Ramsay. 
Biblical  Researches.     Vol.  1. 

Ediv.  Robinson. 
[listory  of  the  People  of  the  United 
States.     Vol.  2.    J.  B.  McMasters. 


418 


THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 


Magazine  of  American  History,  1877. 

1  vol.  Lamb. 

History  of  the  American   Navy.     2 

vols.  J.  F.  Cooper. 

Magazine  of  American  History,  1878. 

1  vol.  Lamb. 

Eothen.  Kinglake. 

August. 

Zoroaster.  F.  M.  Crawford. 

Harry  Marline.  Admiral  Porter. 
Aulnay  Tower.  Blanche  Howard. 
Aspasia.  1st  vol.  Robert  Hamerling. 
Silas  Lapham.  Howells. 

Debates,  New  York,  etc. 
Diary  of  Two  Parliaments.        Lucy. 
The  World  of  London.    Paul  Vasili. 
Society  of  London. 

Foreign  Resident. 
Strange  Adventures  of  a  Phaeton. 

Black. 

A  Pair  of  Blue  Eyes.  Hardy. 

Holland  and  Scandinavia. 

A.  C.  Hare. 

Addison.  W.  G.  Courthope. 

Sheridan.  Mrs.  Oliphant. 

Adventures  and  Sufferings  in  Nootha 

Sound.  John  Jewett. 

September. 

Fielding.  Austin  Dobson. 

Bacon.  Church. 

Life  of  Jonathan  Trumbull. 

J.  W.  Stuart. 

Spain  and  the  Spaniards.  De  Amicis. 
Letters  from  High  Latitudes. 

Lord  Dufferin. 

Studies  of  Paris.  De  Amicis. 

Oregon.  Barrows. 

Kentucky.  N.  S.  Shaler. 

Virginia.  J.  Esten  Cooke. 

Michigan.  Tlios.  Mclntyre  Cooley. 
Journey  to  the  Hebrides.  Bos  well. 
Journey  to  the  Hebrides.  Johnson. 
White  Wings.  Black. 

Swallow  Barn.  J.  P.  Kennedy. 

The  Linwoods.     2  vols. 

C.  Sedgwick. 

Due  South.  M.  M.  Ballou. 

An  Inland  Voyage.  R.  L.  Stevenson. 

October. 

Hope  Leslie.  2  vols.  C.  Sedgwick. 
The  Redwoods.  C.  Sedgwick. 

Due  West,  M.  M.  Ballou. 

Wm.  Wirt,  Life  and  Times.     2  vols. 
J.  P.  Kennedy. 
Constantinople.  De  Amicis. 


Around  the  World  in  Eighty  Days. 

Jules  Verne. 

Maryland.  Wm.  II.  Browne. 

Life  of  Agassiz.     2  vols. 

Mrs.  Agassiz. 

GustaVe  Dore,  Life  and  Reminis 
cences.  Blanche  Roosevelt. 
One  Summer.  Blanche  lloicard. 
Pride  and  Prejudice.  Jane  Austen. 
Bryant  and  His  Friends. 

James  G.  Wilson* 

Greville,  Journal,  1827-1852.  Vols. 
1,  2.  //.  Reeve. 

November. 
Greville's  Journal.     Vol.  3. 

//.  Reeve. 

Gleanings    in      Europe  —  England. 

2  vols.  J.  F.  Cooper. 

Souvenirs  of  a  Diplomat.      Bacourt. 

Gleanings    in    Europe  —  France.     2 

vols.  J.  F.  Cooper. 

Gleanings  in  Europe  —  Italy.  2  vols. 

J.  F.  Cooper. 

A  Larger  History  of  United  States. 

T.  Went  worth  Higginson. 
Life  of  James  Monroe. 

D.  C.  Oilman. 

A  Merry  Monarch.    England   under 
Charles  II.     2  vols. 

W.  II.  Davenport  Klaus. 
Royalty  Restored.     2  vols. 

J.  Fitzgerald  Molloy. 
Life  of  James  Madison.  Gay. 

Life  and  Letters  of  Hallock. 

J.  G.  Wilson. 

December. 

Thos.  Hutchinson,  Diary  and  Letters. 

P.  0.  Hutchinson. 

Colonial  History  of  New  York.    Vol. 

1.  Geo.  W.  Schuyler. 

Lionel  Lincoln.  J.  F.  Cooper. 

Rush's  Court  Life  in  London.    1815- 

1819.  Rush. 

Rush's  Court  Life.     1819-1825. 
John  Quincy  Adams.  Works.  Vol.  3. 
C.  F.  Adams. 

1886. 
January. 

John  Quincy  Adams.     Vol.  4,  5,  6, 
7,  8,  9.  C.  F.  Adams. 

The  Cruise  of  the  "  Brooklyn." 

Lt.  Buhler. 

House  of  Stuart.  Jesse. 

Lives  of  Engineers.  Smiles. 

Life  of  Pickering. 


TILDEN'S   READING 


419 


February. 

John  Quincy  Adams.     Vol.  10. 

C.  F.  Adams. 
Random  Recollections. 

//.  B.  Stanton. 
Pilgrim  Fathers. 

Mrne.  Mohl,  Her  Salon  and  Friends. 
K.  O'Meara. 
Salisbury  Cathedral. 
Oceana.  Froude. 

History  of  Tryon  County. 
Old  Merchants  of  New  York.   Vol.  5. 
Scoville  Barrett. 
History  of  Wyoming. 
Beaconsfield's  Letters  to  His  Sister. 

1832-52. 

Senior's  Conversations  in  France  and 
Italy,  1848-52.    2  vols.     Simpson. 
Senior's    Conversations  with  Distin 
guished  Men,  1860-63.     2  vols. 

Simpson. 
March. 

Mme.  de  Maintenon.     A  Study. 
Marlborough.  Saintsbury. 

Letters  of  George  Sand.     3  vols. 
Literature.  //.  Grimm. 

The  Age  of  Louis  XIV.         Voltaire. 
George   Ticknor,  Life   and  Letters. 

2  vols. 
History  of  the  Three  Judges. 

Ezra  Stiles. 
April. 

Reminiscences,  Ronald  Gower.    Vol. 

1. 
Letters    of    Mme.   Remusat,    1804- 

1813. 

Biographical  Sketches.       N.  Senior. 
Haphazard.  Lauman. 


The  Last  Days  of  the  Consulate. 

Fauriel. 
May. 

California.  Royce. 

Colorado.     Vols.  1,  2. 

Bayard  Taylor. 

Tocqueville's  Conversations.   2  vols. 
N.  Senior. 
Life  of  J.  Q.  Adams.    Vol.  1. 

C.  F.  Adams. 
The  New  Puritan.  J.  S.  Pike. 

June. 

Shaftesbury.  II.  D.  Trail. 

J.  Q.  Adams.     Vols.  2,  3. 

C.  F.  Adams. 
Triumphant  Democracy. 

And.  Carnegie. 

Joel  Barlow.  Chas.  B.  Todd. 

Prince  Bismarck.     2  vols. 

Chas.  Lowe. 
July. 

At  Home  in  Fiji. 

C.  F.  Gordon-Gumming. 
Peveril  of  the  Peak.     2  vols. 

Walter  Scott. 

Henry  Esmond.  Vol.  1.  Thackeray. 
Taine's  Notes  on  England.  Taine. 
Fireside  Travels.  J.  R.  Lowell. 

Life  of  Longfellow.     2  vols. 

S.  Longfellow. 
A  Walk  from  London  to  Fulham. 

T.  Crofton  Crofter. 
High  Lights. 

August. 

2.    Diary   and  Letters  of   Hugh   S. 
Legare.     Vol.  1. 

2.  Essays  of  H.  S.  Legare.     Vol.  2. 

3.  American  Notes.         Hawthorne. 


APPB1STDIX   D 


THE   LAST   WILL   AND   TESTAMENT  OF    SAMUEL  JONES   TILDEN. 

Died  Aug.  4,  1886. 

MINDFUL  of  the  uncertainty  of  life,  and  being  now  in  the  full  possession 
of  all  the  faculties  of  mind  and  memory,  I,  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  of  Graystone, 
in  the  city  of  Yonkers,  county  of  Westchester  and  State  of  New  York,  do 
hereby  make,  publish,  and  declare  this  my  last  Will  and  Testament,  in  the 
manner  and  form  following,  that  is  to  say : 

I.  I  hereby  expressly  revoke  and  cancel  any  and  all  other  wills  hereto 
fore  made  by  me. 

II.  I  hereby  nominate,  constitute,  and  appoint  John  Bigelow,  of  Highland 
Falls,  Andrew  II.  Green,  and  George   W.  Smith,  of  the  city  of  New  York, 
Executors  and  Trustees  under  this  my  last  Will  and  Testament. 

III.  I  direct  that  the  compensation  to  be  paid  to  and  received  by  my 
said  Executors   and  Trustees  shall   be  to   each  the   yearly  sum  of  Five 
thousand  dollars ;  but  such  annual  compensation  shall  be  in  lieu  of  and   a 
full  satisfaction  and  discharge   for  any  and  all  commissions  and   charges 
other  than  actual  disbursements  to  which  my  said  Executors  and   Trustees 
might  or  would   be   entitled  in  whatever  capacity,  under  the   laws  of  this 
State,  in  any  and  all  trusts  (including  all  services  in  the  special  Trusts  to 
be  constituted  under  this  Will),  if  their   compensation  were   not  hereby 
fixed  and  agreed  upon  as  aforesaid ;  and   that   any  sum  which  George  W. 
Smith  may  receive  as  my  private  secretary  or  as  an  officer  or  servant  of  the 
York  Mining  Company  or  Delphic  Iron  Company  be  deducted  from  his  com 
pensation  as  Executor  and  Trustee.     Such   compensation  of  Five  thousand 
dollars   shall  be  so   long   as   he   shall   be   in   performance   of  the   duties 
of  the  special  Trustee  under  the  Trust  hereby  directed  to  be   constituted 
and  of  the  duties  of  an   Executor   and   Trustee  under  this  Will  of  my 
general  estate,  and  as   a  trustee,  manager,  or  director  of  the  corporation 
hereinafter  provided.     Such  compensation  shall  be  paid  out  of  my  general 
estate  so  long  as  it  shall  remain  in  the  custody  of  my  Executors  and  Trus 
tees,  and  by  the  corporation  hereinafter  provided,  after  the  residue  of  my 
general  estate  shall  be  vested  in  such  corporation. 

IV.  I  will  and  direct  that  all  the  powers  and  authorities  granted  in  and 
by  this  my  last  Will  and  Testament  to  my  said  Executors   and  Trustees 
shall  and  may  be  exercised  by  a  majority  of  the  persons  or  by  the  person 
who  shall  for  the  time  being  lawfully  hold  and  be  in  the  exercise  of  the 
functions  of  an  Executor  and  Trustee  hereunder. 


TILDEN'S    WILL  421 

V.  I  request  and  direct  that  no  bond  or  security  shall  be  required  by 
any  Surrogate,  Probate  Court,  or  judge  from  my  Executors  and  Trustees  on 
account  of  the  non-residence  of  such  Executor   and   Trustee,  or   either   of 
them,  within  the  jurisdiction  of  such  Surrogate,  Probate  Court,  or  judge, 
or  for  any  reason  whatever. 

VI.  In  case  of  the  death,  resignation,  or  incapacity  of  either  of  my  said 
Executors  and  Trustees,  the  survivors  of  them  shall  immediately  appoint  a 
successor  by  an  instrument  in  writing  under  their  hands  and  seals ;  and 
upon  such  appointment  being  made,  the  person  so  appointed  shall  thereupon 
become  and  be  invested  with  all  the  powers,  rights,  and  authorities    con 
ferred  upon  an  Executor  and  Trustee  hereby  appointed. 

VII.  I  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  pay  and  dischage  all 
my  just  debts  and  liabilities  out  of  my  personal  estate. 

VIII.  My  said  Executors  and  Trustees   are  directed  to  constitute  the 
Trusts  for  specific  persons  hereinafter  more  particularly  described  and  de 
fined.     My  said  Executors  and  Trustees  shall  be  Trustees  of  the  special 
Trusts  by  them  so   constituted;  but  the  said  Trusts  shall  be  distinct  and 
separate  from  the  general  Trust  under  this  instrument.     In  their  capacity 
of  Trustees  of  Trusts  for  specific  persons,  they  shall  have  power  to  manage 
the  several  Trusts;  to  collect  the  income  thereof,  and  to  apply  the  same  as 
herein  directed;  to  sell  in  their  discretion  the  securities  and  to  reinvest  the 
proceeds  thereof. 

IX.  I  hereby  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  allow  my  sister, 
Mrs.  Mary  B.  Pelton,  during  her  natural  life,  the  use  of  the  house  number 
thirty-eight  West  Thirty-eighth  Street  in  the  city  of  New  York.     I  also 
direct  them  to  pay  any  mortgage  to  which  the  said  premises  may  be  now 
subject.     I  also  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  invest  two  sev 
eral  sums  of  Fifty  thousand  dollars  each,  in  separate  and  distinct  Trusts, 
and  to  apply  the  income  of  the  said  two  Trusts  to  the  use  of  the  said  Mary 
B.  Pelton  during  her  natural  life.     Upon  the  decease  of  my  said  sister 
Mary  B.  Pelton,  the  house  known  as  number  thirty-eight  West  Thirty-eighth 
Street  in  the  city  of  New  York  shall  be  applied  to  the  use  of  my  grand-niece 
Laura  A.  Pelton  for  the  remainder  of  her  natural  life.     Upon  the  decease 
of  my  sister  Mary  B.  Pelton,  one  of  the  said  Trusts  of  Fifty  thousand 
dollars  shall  be  applied  to  the  use  of  my  grand-niece  Laura  A.  Pelton, 
unless  my  said  sister  Mary  B.   Pelton  shall  by  her  last  will  and  testament 
have  made  a  different  disposition  of  the  same,  which  she  is  hereby  empow 
ered  to  do.     Upon  the  decease  of  the  said  Laura  A.  Pelton,  if  she  leave 
issue,  the  said  house  number  thirty-eight  West  Thirty-eighth  Street,  desig 
nated  as  the  first  Trust,  and  the  principal  of  the  said  second  Trust,  being 
Fifty  thousand  dollars,  shall  be  paid  over  to  the  heirs  of  her  body.     If  she 
leave  no  issue  the  principal  of  said  first  Trust,  being  of  the  said  house 
number  thirty-eight  West  Thirty-eighth  Street,  shall  be  paid  over  as  she 
may  by  her  last  will  and  testament  direct,  and  the  principal  of  the  said 
second  Trust  shall  be  paid  over  to  the  Tilden  Trust  hereinafter  mentioned, 
if  the  same  shall  have  been  authorized  and  constituted ;  or,  if  the  said  Tilden 


422  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

Trust  shall  not  be  capable  of  receiving  the  same,  the  principal  of  the  said 
two  Trusts  shall  be  applied  to  such  charitable  objects  as  the  Trustees  for 
the  time  being,  of  the  two  said  Trusts,  may  designate.  Upon  the  decease  of 
my  sister  Mary  B.  Pelton,  the  principal  of  the  third  Trust,  being  for  Fifty 
thousand  dollars,  shall  be  applied  to  the  use  of  my  niece  Caroline  B.  Whit- 
tlesey,  during  her  natural  life,  and  upon  her  decease  shall  be  paid  over  to 
the  heirs  of  her  body,  if  she  leave  any.  If  she  leave  no  such  heir,  the 
same  shall  be  paid  over  as  by  her  last  will  and  testament  she  may  direct.  In 
addition  to  the  foregoing  provisions  herein  made  for  the  benefit  of  my  sister 
Mary  B.  Pelton,  my  Executors  and  Trustees  shall  invest  such  sum  not  exceed 
ing  Fifty  thousand  dollars  as  I  may  hereinafter  in  writing  instruct  them  to 
do,  and  hold  the  same  as  a  distinct  and  separate  Trust.  The  Trustees  of  the 
said  special  Trust  shall  apply  the  income  thereof  to  the  use  of  the  said  Mary 
B.  Pelton  during  her  natural  life,  and  after  her  decease  shall  pay  over  the 
principal  sum  to  the  Tilden  Trust  hereinafter  mentioned,  if  the  same  shall 
have  been  authorized  and  constituted ;  or  if  the  said  Tilden  Trust  shall  not 
be  capable  of  receiving  the  same,  the  principal  of  said  Trust  shall  be  applied 
to  such  charitable  objects  as  the  Trustees  for  the  time  being  of  the  said 
Trust  may  designate. 

X.  I  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  invest  Fifty  thousand 
dollars  in  two  special  and  separate  Trusts  of  Twenty-five  thousand  dollars 
each,  and  to  apply  the  income  of  the  said  two  Trusts  to  the  use  of  Lucy  F. 
Tilden,  widow  of  my  late  brother  Moses  Y.  Tilden,  during  her  natural  life. 
Upon  her  decease,  the  income  of  one  of  the  two  said  Trusts  shall  be 
applied  to  the  use  of  her  adopted  daughter  Adelaide  E.  Buchanan  during 
Her  natural  life,  unless  the  said  Lucy  F.  Tilden  shall  by  her  last  will  and 
testament  have  made  a  different  disposition  of  the  same,  which  she  is  hereby 
empowered  to  do.  Upon  the  decease  of  the  said  Adelaide  E.  Buchanan,  the 
principal  of  the  said  Trust  of  Twenty-five  thousand  dollars  shall  be  paid 
over  to  the  heirs  of  her  body,  if  she  leave  any,  unless  the  said  Adelaide  E. 
Buchanan  shall  by  her  last  will  and  testament  have  made  a  different  dispo 
sition  of  the  same,  which  she  is  hereby  empowered  to  do.  If  she  leave  no 
issue,  the  principal  of  the  said  Twenty-five  thousand  dollars  shall  be  paid 
over  to  such  person  or  persons  as  she  may  designate  by  her  last  will  and 
testament.  Upon  the  decease  of  the  said  Lucy  F.  Tilden,  the  principal 
of  the  other  Trust  of  Twenty-five  thousand  dollars  shall  be  disposed  of  as 
hereinafter  directed. 

My  Executors  and  Trustees  are  directed  to  convey  to  Adelaide  E.  Bu 
chanan  the  obligations  of  her  husband  for  Five  thousand  dollars  which  I 
loaned  to  him  some  years  ago.  In  addition  to  the  other  provisions  made 
in  this  instrument  for  the  benefit  of  the  said  Adelaide  E.  Buchanan,  my 
Executors  and  Trustees  are  also  directed  to  set  apart  Twenty  thousand 
dollars  in  First  Mortgage  bonds  of  the  Oregon  Short  Line  Railroad  Com 
pany  as  a  special  Trust  for  the  benefit  of  the  said  Adelaide  E.  Buchanan. 
The  Trustees  of  said  special  Trust  shall  apply  the  income  thereof  to  the 
use  of  the  said  Adelaide  E.  Buchanan  during  her  natural  life,  and  after  her 


TILDEN'S    WILL  423 

decease   shall  dispose   of    the   same   as   in  this   instrument  is   hereafter 
directed. 

XI.  I  hereby  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  invest  the  sum 
of  Fifty  thousand  dollars,  to  be  known  as  the  Sixth  Trust,  and  to  apply  the 
income  of  the  same  to  the  use  of  Susan  G.  Tilden,  the  widow  of  my  brother 
Henry  A.  Tilden,  during  her  natural  life.     Upon  her  decease  the  income  of 
the  same  shall  be  applied  to  the  use  of  my  niece  Henrietta  A.  Swan,  during 
her  natural  life,  unless  that  the  said  Susan  G.  Tilden  shall  by  her  last  will 
and  testament  have  made  a  different  disposition  of  the  same,  which  she  is 
hereby  empowered  to  do.    Upon  the  decease  of  the  said  Henrietta  A.  Swan, 
the  principal  of  the  said  Trust  shall  be  paid  over  to  the  heirs  of  her  body, 
if  she  leave  any,  unless  the  said  Henrietta  A.  Swan  shall  by  her  last  will 
and  testament  have  made  a  different  disposition  of  the  same,  which  she  is 
hereby  empowered  to  do.     If  she  leave  no  issue,  then  the  principal  of  the 
said  Trust  of  Fifty  thousand  dollars  shall  be  paid  over  as  she  may  direct  by 
her  last  will  and  testament,  which  she  is  hereby  empowered  to  do. 

XII.  I  direct  that  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  shall  vest  in  a  special 
Trust  for  the  benefit  of  my  niece  Caroline  B.  Whittlesey  One  hundred 
shares   of    the   stock   of  the  Cleveland   &   Pittsburg  Railroad   Company 
standing  in.  my  name  as  Trustee,  but  for  which  she  holds  a  power  of 
attorney  from  me  to  collect  the  income  thereof.     The  Trustees  of  the  said 
special  Trust  shall  apply  the  income  thereof  to  the  use  of  the  said  Caroline 
B.  Whittlesey  during  her  natural  life ;  and  upon  her  decease  they  shall  pay 
over  the  proceeds  of  the  said  stock  or  assign  the  said  stock  to  the  heirs  of 
the  body  of  my  said  niece  Caroline  B.  Whittlesey,  if  she  leave  any,  and  if 
she  leave  no  such  heir  shall  pay  over  or  assign  the  same  to  such  person  as 
she  may  by  her  last  will  and  testament  direct. 

XIII.  I  also  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  assign  to  the  said 
Caroline  B.  Whittlesey  my  interest  in  the  Delphic  Iron  Company,  whether 
consisting  of  stock  or  loans,  counting  the  same  at  cost  and  interest,  and 
also  to  assign  all  sums  her  husband  William  A.  Whittlesey  may  be  owing 
to  me  at  the  time  of  my  decease  for  loans  or  advances  to  him  or  for  which 
he  may  be  liable.     I  also  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  invest 
a  sum  sufficient  to  make  with  the  stock  in  and  loans  to  the  Delphic  Iron 
Company  and  the  said  loans  and  advances  to  the  said  William  A.  Whittlesey, 
or  for  which  he  may  be  liable,  the  sum  of  Fifty  thousand  dollars  in  a 
special  Trust  for  the  benefit  of  the  said  Caroline  B.  Whittlesey.     The 
Trustees  of  the  said  special  Trust  shall  apply  the  income  of  the  said  special 
Trust  to  the  use  of  the  said  Caroline  B.  Whittlesey  during  her  natural  life, 
and  after  her  decease  shall  pay  over  the  same  to  the  heirs  of  her  body,  if 
she  leaves  any.     If  she  leaves  no  such  heir  then  they  shall  pay  over  the 
same  as  she  may  by  her  last  will  and  testament  direct. 

XIV.  I  direct  that  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  shall  vest  in  a  special 
Trust  for  the  benefit  of  my  niece  Henrietta  A.  Swan,  One  hundred  shares 
of  the  stock  of  the  Cleveland  &  Pittsburg  Railroad  Company  standing  in 
my  name  as  Trustee,  but  for  which  she  holds  a  power  of  attorney  from  me 


424  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDE N 

to  collect  the  income  thereof.  The  Trustees  of  the  said  special  Trust  shall 
apply  the  income  thereof  to  the  use  of  the  said  Henrietta  A.  Swan  during 
her  natural  life,  and  upon  her  decease  they  shall  pay  over  the  proceeds  of 
the  said  stock  or  assign  the  said  stock  to  the  heirs  of  the  body  of  my  said 
niece  Henrietta  A.  Swan,  if  she  leaves  any,  and  if  she  leaves  no  such  heir 
shall  pay  over  or  assign  the  same  to  such  person  as  she  may  by  her  last  will 
and  testament  direct. 

I  also  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  invest  the  sum  of  Fifty 
thousand  dollars  as  a  special  Trust  for  the  use  of  my  said  niece  Henrietta 
A.  Swan  during  her  natural  life,  and  after  her  decease  to  the  use  of  the 
heirs  of  her  body,  unless  she  in  her  last  will  and  testament  shall  otherwise 
direct,  which  she  is  hereby  empowered  to  do.  If  she  leaves  no  such  heir 
the  said  principal  shall  be  disposed  of  as  hereinafter  provided. 

XV.  I  hereby  request  the  heirs-at-laAv  of  my  late  brother  Moses  Y. 
Tilden  to  unite  in  conveying  to  Lucy  E.  Tilden,  his  widow,  for  her  use 
during  her  natural  life,  the  dwelling-house  in  which  he  formerly  resided  at 
New  Lebanon,  with  about  thirty  acres  of  land  adjacent  thereto,  and  I  direct 
my  Executors  and  Trustees  to  join  in  such  conveyance  in  my  behalf. 

I  hereby  request  the  heirs  of  my  late  brother  Moses  Y.  Tilden,  and  the 
heirs  of  my  late  brother  Henry  A.  Tilden  and  my  sister  Mary  B.  Pelton  or 
her  heirs,  to  unite  in  conveying  to  my  Executors  and  Trustees  the  residue  of 
the  lands  formerly  owned  by  my  father,  Elam  Tilden,  or  subsequently  ac 
quired  by  my  late  brother  Moses  Y.  Tilden  other  than  the  thirty  acres,  or 
acquired  by  my  late  brother  Henry  A.  Tilden  other  than  the  lands  adjacent 
to  his  dwelling-house  or  used  in  connection  with  his  manufactories,  and 
excepting  also  the  land  upon  which  a  stone  building  heretofore  used  as  a 
school  was  erected  by  my  late  brother  Henry  A.  Tilden.  I  hereby  direct  my 
Executors  and  Trustees  to  cause  said  conveyances  to  be  executed  as  a  con 
dition  precedent  to  the  payment  of  the  legacies  hereby  given.  My  object  is 
to  keep  the  landed  property  together  and  in  the  family,  and  I  direct  my 
Executors  and  Trustees  to  apply  the  same  to  the  use  of  my  nephews  George 
H.  Tilden  and  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  second,  during  their  natural  lives.  After 
their  decease  the  same  shall  be  disposed  of  as  they  or  the  survivor  of  them 
in  their  last  will  and  testament  direct. 

XVI.  I  authorize  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees,  at  such  time  as  they  may 
deem  judicious,  to  release  to  my  said  nephews  George  H.  Tilden  and  Samuel 
J.  Tilden,  second,  a  debt  which  they  owe  to  me  for  cash  advances  lately  made 
by  me  to  them  in  their  business  now  amounting  Avith  interest  to  the  sum  of 
about  Thirty-four    thousand  dollars,  and  also  a  mortgage  which  I  hold 
against  them  now  amounting  with  interest  to  about  Thirty-three  thousand 
dollars. 

I  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  pay  certain  notes  given  many 
years  ago  by  my  late  brothers  Moses  Y.  Tilden  and  Henry  A.  Tilden  to 
Catherine  H.  Pierson,  the  principal  of  which  I  afterwards  guaranteed  to 
save  my  mother  from  endorsing  the  same,  which  said  notes  have  been 
assumed  by  my  nephews  George  H.  Tilden  and  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  second, 
who  will  be  relieved  by  the  payment  thereof. 


TILDEtfS    WILL  425 

XVII.  I  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  set  apart  the  sum  of 
Seventy-five  thousand  dollars  as  a  special  Trust  for  the  benefit  of  my 
nephew  George  II.  Tilden.     The  income  of  the  said  special  Trust  shall  be 
applied  by  the  Trustees  thereof  to  the  use  of  the  said  George  H.  Tilden 
during  his  natural  life.     Upon  his  decease,  the  said  Fund  shall  be  paid  over 
to  the  heirs  of  the  body  of  the  said  George  H.  Tilden,  if  he  leave  any.     If 
he  leave  no  such  heir,  then  if  my  nephew  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  second,  him 
survive,  the  said  Fund  shall  be  applied  by  the  Trustees  of  the  said  Fund  to 
the  use  of  the  said  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  second,  and  upon  his  decease  the  said 
Fund  shall  be  paid  over  to  the  heirs  of  his  body,  if  he  leave  any.     If  he 
leave  no  such  heir  the  said  Fund  shall  be  paid  over  as  he  in  his  last  will 
and  testament  may  direct. 

XVIII.  I  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  set  apart  the  sum  of 
Seventy-five  thousand  dollars  as  a  special  Trust   for  the  benefit  of   my 
nephew  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  second.     The  income  of  the  said  'special  Trust 
shall  be  applied  by  the  Trustees  thereof  to  the  use  of  the  said  Samuel  J. 
Tilden,  second,  during  his  natural  life.     Upon  his  decease  the  said  Fund 
shall  be  paid  over  to  the  heirs  of  his  body,  if  he  leave  any.     If  he  leave  no 
such  heir,  then  if  my  nephew  George  H.  Tilden  him  survive,  the  said  Fund 
shall  be  applied  by  the  Trustees  of  the  said  Fund  to  the  use  of  the  said 
George  II.  Tilden,  and  upon  his  decease  the  said  Fund  shall  be  paid  over  to 
the  heirs  of  his  body,  if  he  leave  any.     If  he  leave  no  such  heir  the  said 
Fund  shall  be  paid  over  as  he  in  his  last  will  and  testament  may  direct. 

XIX.  I  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  set  apart  the  sum  of 
One  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  as  a  special  Trust  for  the  benefit  of 
my  niece  Ruby  S.  Tilden.     The  income  of  the  said  special  Trust  shall  be 
applied  by  the  Trustees  thereof  to  the  use  of  the  said  Ruby  S.  Tilden  during 
her  natural  life.     Upon  her  decease  the  said  Fund  shall  be  paid  over  to  the 
heirs  of  her  body,  if  she  leave  any.     If  she  leave  no  such  heir,  then  if  my 
niece  Susan  G.  Tilden  her  survive,  the  said  Fund  shall  be  applied  by  the 
Trustees  of  the  said  Fund  to  the  use  of  the  said  Susan  G.  Tilden,  and  upon 
her  decease  the  said  Fund  shall  be  paid  over  to  the  heirs  of  her  body,  if  she 
leave  any.     If  she  leave  no  such  heir  the  said  Fund  shall  be  paid  over  aa 
she  in  her  last  will  and  testament  may  direct. 

XX.  I  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  set  apart  the  sum  of 
One  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  as  a  special  Trust  for  the  benefit  of 
my  niece  Susan  G.  Tilden.     The  income  of  the  said  special  Trust  shall  be 
applied  by  the  Trustees  thereof  to  the  use  of  the  said  Susan  G.  Tilden  dur 
ing  her  natural  life.     Upon  her  decease  the  said  Fund  shall  be  paid  over  to 
the  heirs  of  her  body,  if  she  leave  any.     If  she  leave  no  such  heir,  then  if 
my  niece  Ruby  S.  Tilden  her  survive,  the  said  Fund  shall  be  applied  by  the 
Trustees  of  the  said  Fund  to  the  use  of  the  said  Ruby  S.  Tilden,  and  upon 
her  decease  the  said  Fund  shall  be  paid  over  to  the  heirs  of  her  body,  if  she 
leave  any.     If  she  leave  no  such  heir  the  said  Fund  shall  be  paid  over  as 
she  in  her  last  will  and  testament  may  direct. 

XXI.  I   direct  my  Executors  and  Trustees  not  to  enforce   against  the 


426  THE    LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

estate  of  my  brother,  the  late  Henry  A.  Tilden,  or  against  the  estate  of  my 
late  brother  Moses  Y.  Tilden,  loans  which  I  have  heretofore  made  to  them, 
amounting  to  about  Three  hundred  thousand  dollars ;  but  to  release  and 
cancel  the  same  whenever  the  said  Executors  and  Trustees  shall  be  re 
quested  in  writing  to  do  so  by  George-  H.  Tilden  and  Samuel  J.  'Tilden,  the 
second,  the  sons  of  the  late  Henry  A.  Tilden,  or  by  the  survivor  of  them. 

XXII.  I  direct  my  Executors  and  Trustees  to  set  apart  as  a  separate 
Trust  the  sum  of  Twenty-five  thousand  dollars  for  the  benefit  of  Anna  J. 
Gould  during  her  natural  life.     In  case  she  shall  be  Avith  me  exercising 
care  over  me  during  the  rest  of  my  life,  I  direct  that  the  said  sum  of 
Twenty-five  thousand  dollars   be    Increased    to    One   hundred    thousand 
dollars.     The  income  of  the  said  special   Trust  shall  be  applied  by  the 
Trustees  thereof  to  the  use  of  the  said  Anna  J.  Gould  during  her  natural 
life.     Upon  her  decease  one-half  of  the  said  Fund  shall  be  paid  over  as  the 
said  Anna  J.  Gould  may  by  her  last  will  and  testament  direct.     The  other 
half  shall  be  paid  over  as  herein  directed. 

XXIII.  I  direct  my  said  Executors   and  Trustees  to  set  apart  Fifty 
thousand  dollars  of  First  Mortgage  six  per  cent  International  and  Great 
Northern  Railroad  Company  bonds,  and  Fifty  thousand  dollars  of  the  First 
Mortgage  bonds  of  the  Oregon  Short  Line  Railroad  Company  guaranteed  by 
the  Union  Pacific  Railway  Company,  as  a  special  Trust  for  the  benefit  of  my 
friend  Miss  Marie  Celeste  Stauffer,  daughter  of  Isaac  Stauffer,  Esquire,  of 
New  Orleans.     The  income  of  the  said  special  Trust  shall  be  applied  by 
the  Trustees  thereof  to  the  use  of  the  said  Marie  Celeste  Stauffer   during 
her  natural  life,  free  from  any  interference  or  control  of  any  husband  she 
may  have ;  and  upon  the   decease  of  the  said  Marie  Celeste  Stauffer  the 
Trustees  of  the  said  special  Trust  shall  pay  over  the  principal  of  the  said 
bonds,  or  assign  the  same,  to  the  devisees  or  heirs  of  the  said  Marie  Celeste 
Stauffer. 

XXIV.  In  all  cases  in  which  special  Trusts  are  herein  directed  to  be  cre 
ated  for  the  benefit  of  particular  persons  and  the  income  directed  to  be  applied 
by  the  Trustees  of  special  Trusts,  it  is  hereby  declared  that  the  said  income 
shall  be  kept  free  from  all  pledges,  incumbrances,  or  anticipation  thereof, 
and  every  such  pledge,  incumbrance,  or  anticipation  shall  be  void.     The 
Trustees  of  the  said  special  Trusts  are  hereby  empowered  and  directed  to  sus 
pend  payment  of  such  income  during  the  existence  of  any  such  pretended 
pledge,  incumbrance,  or  anticipation. 

In  all  cases  in  which  such  special  Trust  shall  be  for  the  benefit  of  any 
female,  the  said  income  shall  be  kept  free  from  the  control  or  interference 
of  any  husband  which  the  said  female  now  has  or  may  hereafter  have ; 
such  income  being  intended  to  be  sacredly  devoted  to  the  separate  personal 
use  of  said  female,  and  is  not  to  be  pledged,  incumbered,  or  anticipated  by 
her. 

XXV.  I  direct  my  Executors  and  Trustees,  in  case  any  special  Trust 
hereby  directed  to  be  constituted  shall  fail  in  whole  or  in  part  by  depreci 
ation  of  securities,  to  make  the  same  good  out  of  my  general  estate,  so 


TILDEN'S    WILL  427 

long  as  the  general  Trust  to  my  Executors  and  Trustees  shall  continue ; 
and  in  case  the  said  Executors  and  Trustees  shall  convey  any  portion  of 
that  estate  to  a  corporation  designated  as  the  Tilden  Trust,  or  shall  vest  the 
same  in  any  Trust  or  Trusts  for  charitable  purposes,  to  do  so  on  the 
express  condition  that  the  said  conveyance  shall  be  subject  to  the  obligations 
to  make  good  the  funds  devoted  to  the  said  special  Trusts,  and  shall  exact 
from  the  grantee  in  every  such  case  an  acknowledgment  of  such  obligation 
and  agreement  to  fulfil  the  same.  This  provision  is  made  subject  to  the 
condition  that  the  corporation  shall  be  duly  authorized  by  law,  by  a  special 
act  or  otherwise,  to  accept  the  grant,  subject  to  the  obligations  herein 
directed  to  be  imposed  upon  or  assumed  by  the  said  corporation.  I  also 
direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  obey  such  instructions  as  I  may 
hereafter  give  to  them  in  respect  to  the  allotment  or  selection  of  securities 
for  the  said  special  Trusts  or  any  of  them. 

XXVI.  I  hereby  authorize  and  direct  my  Executors  and  Trustees  during 
the  continuance  of  the  trust  of  my  general  estate  to  apply  any  surplus  in 
come  to  or  towards  the  several  special  Trusts  hereby  directed  to  be  consti 
tuted  in  the  same  manner  as  they  might  apply  the  principal  of  my  said  estate 
to  the  said  purposes. 

XXVII.  I  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  apply  to  the  use  of 
Henrietta  Jones,  of  Monticello,  out  of  my  general  estate,  a  sum  not  ex 
ceeding  Five  hundred  dollars  per  annum  during  her  natural  life,  or  so  long 
as  the  Trust  embracing  my  general  estate  shall  continue. 

XXVIII.  In  case  John  J.  Cahill  shall  remain  in  my  service  the  residue 
of  my  life,  I  authorize  and  direct  my  Executors  and  Trustees  to  pay  over 
to  him  the  sum  of  Eive  thousand  dollars. 

XXIX.  The  Trustees  of  the  said  special  Trust  are  hereby  authorized 
from  time  to  time  to  change  the  investments  hereby  directed  to  be  made 
for  the  use  and  benefit  of  specific  persons  ;  to  sell  the  securities  originally 
purchased  for  or  set  apart  for  such  specific  persons,  and  to  purchase  other 
securities  in  lieu  thereof,  except  in  the  cases  where  the  securities  are  herein 
designated  and  appropriated  to  a  specific  purpose. 

XXX.  I  authorize  my  Executors  and  Trustees  to  contribute  out  of  my 
estate  to  Mrs.  Maria  Sinnott,  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  in  support  and  edu 
cation  of  the  children  of  her  late  husband,  James  P.  Sinnott,  such  sum  as 
they  may  deem  sufficient,  not  exceeding,  however,  the  sum  of  Five  hundred 
dollars  per  annum  for  five  years. 

XXXI.  I  direct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  pay  over  to  such  of 
the  following  persons  as  may  be  in  my  service  at  the  time  of  my  decease, 
to  wit:    Georgen  Johansen,  Henry  G.  Gilbert,  Edward  Riley,    Catherine 
Burke,  and  Rosa  Clark  each  the  sum  of  One  thousand  dollars  ;  and  to  John 
Lynch,  Elizabeth  Byrnes,  Bridget  Gettins,  Dennis  O'Hare,  and  Daniel  Herr 
each  the  sum  of  Five  hundred  dollars. 

XXXII.  I  direct  my  Executors  and  Trustees  to  apply  Ten  thousand 
dollars,  or  such  part  of  it  as  may  be  necessary,  according  to  such  instructions 
as  I  may  hereafter  to  them  from  time  to  time  give  in  writing  or  verbally. 


428  THE   LIFE    OF   SAMUEL    J.    T1LDEN 

XXXIII.  I  authorize  my  Executors  and  Trustees  to  cause  the  establish 
ment  of  a  Library  and  Free  Reading-Room  in  my  native  town  of  New- 
Lebanon  in  the  manner  following,  that  is  to  say  :  they  shall  obtain  title  to  the 
land  on  which  the  building  stands  which  was  erected  by  my  brother  Henry 
A.  Tilden,  and  which  has  been  occupied  by  a  school ;  buying  in  the  mort 
gage  on  the  same,  amounting  to  about  Fifteen  thousand  dollars,  and,  if 
necessary,  obtaining  releases   from  the  heirs   of  my   brother   Henry  A. 
Tilden,  from  my  sister  Mary  B.  Pelton  or  her  heirs,  and  from  Mrs.  Lucy 
F.  Tilden.     They  shall  vest  the  title  in  a  corporation,  if  a  charter  shall  be 
granted  on  their  application  to  the  Legislature,  or  a  corporation  can  be 
formed  under  any  general  law.     My  said  Executors  and  Trustees  are  here 
by  authorized  to  require,  if  needful,  proper  conveyances  to  be  executed  by 
the  heirs  of  the  said  Henry  A.  Tilden,  by  Mary  B.  Pelton  or  her  heirs  and 
by  Lucy  F.  Tilden  as  condition  precedent  to  the  payment  of  the  legacies 
herein  given  to  them  respectively.     They  shall  also  convey  to  the  corpora 
tion,  if  one  be  created,  any  interest  which  I  may  have  in  the  said  premises. 
My  Executors  and  Trustees  are  authorized  to  expend  for  the  creation  and 
equipment  and  to  invest  as  a  permanent  fund  to  maintain  the  said  Library 
and  Reading-Room  the  sum  of  Sixty-five  thousand  dollars,  and  any  further 
sum  not  exceeding  Thirty-five  thousand  dollars  which  I  may  in  writing  in 
struct  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  apply  to  those  objects.     They 
are  also  authorized  to  use  the  said  building  and  endowment  hereby  provided 
in  part  for  a  school  for  the  training  of  girls,  if  they  find  the  same  expedient 
in  connection  with  the  Free  Library  and  Reading-Room. 

XXXIV.  I  hereby  authorize  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  appro 
priate  out  of  my  estate,  in  such  manner  as  they  may  deem  most  expedient, 
the  sum  of  Fifty  thousand  dollars  towards  the  establishment  of  a  Library 
and  Free  Reading-Room  in  the  city  of  Yonkers,  and  such  further  sum  not 
exceeding  Fifty  thousand   dollars   as  I  may  hereafter  instruct  my  said 
Executors  and  Trustees  to  apply  to  that  object.     My  said  Executors  and 
Trustees  are  requested  to  apply  to  the  Legislature  for  a  special  charter  to 
enable  them  to  carry  out  this  provision  or  to  form  a  corporation  under  any 
general  law  which  in  their  judgment  shall  be  most  desirable. 

XXXV.  I  request  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  obtain  as  speedily  as 
possible  from  the  Legislature  an  Act  of  Incorporation  of  an  institution  to  be 
known  as  the  Tilden  Trust,  with  capacity  to  establish  and  maintain  a  Free 
Library  and  Reading-Room  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  to  promote  such 
scientific  and  educational  objects  as  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  may 
more  particularly  designate.     Such  corporation  shall  have  not  less  than  five 
Trustees,  with  power  to  fill  vacancies  in  their  number,  and  in  case  said 
institution  shall  be  incorporated  in  a  form  and  manner  satisfactory  to  my 
said  Executors  and  Trustees  during  the  lifetime  of  the  survivor  of  the  two 
lives  in  being  upon  which  the  Trust  of  my  general  estate  herein  created  is 
limited,  to  wit :  the  lives  of  Ruby  S.  Tilden  and  Susie  Whittlesey,  I  here 
by  authorize  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  organize  the  said  corpora 
tion,  designate  the  first  Trustees  thereof,  and  to  convey  to  or  apply  to  the 


TILDEN'S    WILL  429 

use  of  the  same,  the  rest,  residue,  and  remainder  of  all  my  real  and  personal 
estate  not  specifically  disposed  of  by  this  instrument,  or  so  much  thereof  as 
they  may  deem  expedient,  but  subject,  nevertheless,  to  the  special  Trusts 
herein  directed  to  be  constituted  for  particular  persons,  and  to  the  obliga 
tions  to  make  and  keep  good  the  said  special  Trusts,  provided  that  the  said 
corporation  shall  be  authorized  by  law  to  assume  such  obligation.  But  in 
case  such  institution  shall  not  be  so  incorporated,  during  the  lifetime  of  the 
survivor  of  the  said  Ruby  S.  Tilden  and  Susie  WMttlesey,  or  if  for  any 
cause  or  reason  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  shall  deem  it  inexpedient 
to  convey  said  rest,  residue,  and  remainder  or  any  part  thereof  or  to  apply 
the  same  or  any  part  thereof  to  the  said  institution,  I  authorize  my  said 
Executors  and  Trustees  to  apply  the  rest,  residue,  and  remainder  of  my 
property,  real  and  personal,  after  making  good  the  said  special  Trusts 
herein  directed  to  be  constituted,  or  such  portions  thereof  as  they  may  not 
deem  it  expedient  to  apply  to  its  use,  to  such  charitable  educational  and 
scientific  purposes  as  in  the  judgment  of  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees 
will  render  the  said  rest,  residue,  and  remainder  of  my  property  most 
widely  and  substantially  beneficial  to  the  interests  of  mankind. 

XXXVI.  I  hereby  authorize  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  reserve 
from  any  disposition  made  by  this  Will  such  of  my  books  as  they  may  deem 
expedient,  and  to  dispose  of  the  same  in  such  manner  as  in  their  judgment 
would  have  been  most  agreeable  to  me ;   and  in  such  case  any  of  my  illus 
trated  books  or  books  of  art  should  be  given  to  or  to  the  care  of  the  insti 
tution  described  in  this  Will,  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  shall  make 
suitable  regulations  to  preserve  the  same  from  damage  and  to   regulate 
access  thereto.    And  such  disposition  shall  be  subject  to  such  instructions 
as  I  may  hereafter  in  writing  give  to  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees. 

XXXVII.  In  case  at  any  time  during  the  Trust  embracing  my  general 
estate  any  interest  in  any  special  Trust  hereby  directed  to  be  constituted  shall 
lapse  or  no  disposition  of  such  interest  contained  in  this  instrument  shall 
be  effectual  to  finally  dispose  of  the  same,  such  interest  shall  go  to  my  said 
Executors  and  Trustees  to  be  disposed  of  under  the  provisions  of  this  Will, 
or  if  the  said  general  Trust  shall  have  ceased,  but  a  corporation  designated 
as  the  Tilden  Trust  shall  be  in  operation,  such  interest  shall  go  to  the  said 
corporation. 

XXXVIII.  My  said  Executors  and  Trustees  are  hereby  invested  with  the 
following  powers  :    1.  To  manage  the  funds  herein  directed  to  be  invested  in 
the  Trusts  for  specific  persons  until  such  investments  shall  have  been  made, 
with  like  authorities  as  in  cases  of  other  portions  of  my  estate.     2.    To  sell 
and  dispose  from  time  to  time,  in  their  discretion,  of  such  parts  and  parcels 
of  the  real  estate  and  other  property  hereby  devised,  given,  and  bequeathed 
to  them  as  they  shall  deem  advisable,  and  so  to  sell  and  dispose  of  the  same 
at  public  or  private  sale,  at  such  price  or  prices,  and  upon  such  terms  as  to 
mode,  time,  and  security  of  payment,  as  they  shall  deem  proper,  and  to  sign, 
seal,  execute,  and  deliver  all  proper  and  necessary  conveyances  therefor.   3. 
From  tinte  to  time  to  invest  and  reinvest  all  moneys  belonging  to  my  estate 


430  THE   LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN 

whether  derived  from  sales  of  said  devised  and  bequeathed  property  or 
otherwise  in  such  manner  as  they  may  deem  expedient,  subject,  however,  to 
the  same  Trusts  upon  which  said  moneys  or  property  were  originally  held 
by  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees. 

XXXIX.  I  hereby  devise  and  bequeath  to  my  said  Executors  and  Trus 
tees,  and  to  their  successors  in  the  Trust  hereby  created,  and  to  the  survivors 
and  survivor  of  them,  all  the  rest  and  residue  of  all  the  property,  real  and 
personal,  of  whatever  name  or  nature  and  wheresoever  situated,  of  which  I 
may  be  seized  or  possessed,  or  to  which  I  may  be  entitled  at  the  time  of 
my  decease  which  may  remain  after  instituting  the  several  Trusts  for  the 
benefit  of  specific  persons,  and  after  making  provisions  for  the  specific 
bequests  and  objects  as  herein  directed.  To  have  and  to  hold  the  same 
unto  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  and  to  their  successors  in  the  Trust 
hereby  created  and  the  survivors  and  survivor  of  them  in  trust  to  possess, 
hold,  manage,  and  take  care  of  the  same  during  a  period  not  exceeding  two 
lives  in  being,  that  is  to  say :  the  lives  of  my  niece  Ruby  S.  Tilden  and  my 
grand-niece  Susie  Whittlesey,  and  until  the  decease  of  the  survivor  of  the 
said  two  persons,  and  after  deducting  all  necessary  and  proper  expenses,  to 
apply  the  same  and  the  proceeds  thereof  to  the  objects  and  purposes  men 
tioned  in  this  my  Will. 

XL.  I  hereby  authorize  my  Executors  and  Trustees  to  apply  Ten  thou 
sand  dollars  to  the  creation  of  a  trust,  the  income  of  which  shall  be  applied 
to  keeping  in  repair,  improving,  and  adorning  the  cemetery  in  the  town  of 
New  Lebanon  in  which  the  most  of  my  near  relatives  are  buried.  I  request 
my  Executors  and  Trustees  to  make  available  any  lawful  power  which  may 
exist  or  can  be  procured  for  vesting  the  said  cemetery  in  a  corporation,  to 
the  end  that  the  appropriation  hereby  authorized  shall  be  as  permanent  as 
possible. 

XLI.  I  authorize  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  cause  to  be  erected 
a  monument  which  in  their  judgment  and  discretion  shall  seem  suitable  to 
my  memory,  and  to  defray  the  expense  thereof  from  my  estate. 

XLII.  I  also  authorize  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  to  collect  and 
publish,  in  such  form  as  they  deem  proper,  my  speeches  and  public  docu 
ments,  and  such  other  writings  and  papers  as  they  may  think  expedient  to 
include  with  the  same,  which  shall  be  done  under  their  direction.  The  ex 
penses  thereof  shall  be  paid  out  of  my  estate.  My  Trustees  and  Executors 
are  authorized  and  empowered  to  burn  and  destroy  any  of  my  letters, 
papers,  or  other  documents,  whether  printed  or  in  manuscript,  which  in 
their  judgment  will  answer  no  useful  purpose  to  preserve. 

XLIII.  Since  I  have  made  a  disposition  of  my  property  according  to  my 
best  judgment,  and  since  as  most  of  the  devisees  or  legatees  under  it  are 
females,  it  is  impossible  to  foresee  under  what  influences  some  one  or  more 
of  them  might  possibly  come ;  and  since  it  is  desirable  to  avert  unseemly  or 
speculative  litigations,  I  hereby  declare  it  to  be  my  will  that  in  case  any 
person,  who  if  I  had  died  intestate  would  be  entitled  to  any  share  in  my 
property  or  estate  shall,  under  any  pretence  whatever,  institute,  take,  or 


TILDE  N'S    WILL  431 

share  in  any  proceeding  to  oppose  the  probate  of  this  my  last  Will  and 
Testament,  or  to  impeach  or  impair  or  to  set  aside  or  invalidate  any  of  its 
provisions,  any  devise  or  legacy  to  or  for  the  benefit  of  such  person  or 
persons  under  this  will  is  hereby  revoked,  and  such  person  shall  be  excluded 
from  any  participation  in  and  shall  not  have  any  share  or  portion  of  my 
property  or  estate  real  or  personal,  and  the  portion  to  which  such  person 
might  be  entitled,  if  I  had  died  intestate  or  might  otherwise  be  entitled 
under  the  provisions  of  this  instrument,  shall  be  devoted  to  such  chari 
table  purposes  as  my  said  Executors  and  Trustees  shall  designate. 

In  witness  whereof,  I,  the  said  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  the  above-named  testa 
tor,  have  herein  set  my  hand  and  seal  this  twenty-third  day  of  April  in  the 
year  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  eighty-four. 

SAMUEL  J.    TILDEN.     (Seal.) 


APPENDIX   B 


CHAPTER    85. 

AN  ACT  TO  INCORPORATE  THE  TILDEN  TRUST,  FOR  THE  ESTABLISHMENT  AND 
MAINTENANCE  OF  A  FREE  LIBRARY  AND  READING-ROOM  IN  THE  CITY  OF  NEW 
YORK. 

Passed  March  26,  1887;  three-fifths  being  present. 

WHEREAS,  John  Bigelow,  Andrew  II.  Green,  and  George  W.  Smith,  the 
executors  and  trustees  of  the  last  will  and  testament  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden, 
deceased,  have,  in  pursuance  of  provisions  of  said  will  and  testament,  made 
application  to  the  Legislature  for  the  enactment  of  the  following  act ;  and, 

WHEREAS,  The  said  executors  and  trustees  deem  it  inexpedient  to  desig 
nate  any  purposes  of  the  corporation  herein  and  hereby  created  other  than 
the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  a  free  library  and  reading-room  in 
the  city  of  New  York,  in  accordance  with  the  purpose  and  intention  of  said 
testator ;  therefore 

The  People  of  the  State  of  New  York,  represented  in  Senate  and  Assembly, 
do  enact  as  follows  : 

SECTION  1.  The  said  John  Bigelow,  of  Highland  Falls,  in  Orange 
county,  and  Andrew  H.  Green  and  George  W.  Smith,  of  the  city  of  New 
York,  and  such  other  persons  as  they  may  associate  with  themselves,  and 
their  successors  are  hereby  created  a  body  corporate  and  politic  under  the 
name  and  title  of  the  Tilden  Trust. 

SECT.  2.  The  said  John  Bigelow,  Andrew  II.  Green,  and  George  W. 
Smith  shall  be  permanent  trustees  of  such  corporation  in  accordance  with 
the  intention  of  the  said  will  in  that  behalf.  Within  ninety  days  from  the 
passage  of  this  act  they  shall  designate  and  appoint,  in  writing,  other  trus 
tees,  so  that  the  number  of  trustees  shall  be  not  less  than  five. 

SECT.  3.  One-half  of  the  other  trustees  so  designated  and  appointed 
shall  hold  office  for  the  term  of  one  year  and  the  other  half  thereof  for  the 
term  of  two  years.  After  such  designation  and  appointment  shall  have 
been  made,  every  trustee  appointed  to  fill  any  vacancy  in  the  board  of 
trustees  shall  hold  office  for  the  term  of  two  years.  Any  vacancy  which 
may  at  any  time  occur  in  said  board  through  death,  resignation,  incapacity, 
expiration  of  term,  or  otherwise,  shall  be  filled  by  the  remaining  trustees. 

SECT.  4.  All  the  powers  of  the  said  corporation  shall  be  vested  in  the 
trustees.  They  shall  have  the  power  to  appoint  a  president  and  vice-presi 
dent,  secretary  and  treasurer,  of  whom  the  secretary  and  treasurer  need  not 


CHARTER    OF    THE    TILDE N    TRUST  433 

be  members  of  said  board.  Such  officers  shall  hold  their  offices  upon  such 
tenure,  and  shall  receive  such  compensation  as  the  by-laws  may  prescribe. 
Said  trustees  shall  also  have  power  to  appoint  such  other  officers  and  agents 
as  the  proper  conduct  of  the  affairs  of  said  corporation  shall  require,  remova 
ble  at  the  pleasure  of  the  board,  and  to  fix  their  compensation. 

SECT.  5.  The  said  corporation  shall  have,  in  addition  to  the  powers  now 
conferred  by  law  upon  all  corporations  as  such,  the  capacity  and  power  to 
establish  and  maintain  a  free  library  and  reading  room  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  and  for  these  purposes  it  shall  have  power  to  demand,  recover, 
accept,  and  receive  all  such  money  and  other  property,  real  or  personal,  as 
is  given  to  it  by  virtue  of  the  will  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  or  shall  be  conveyed 
or  transferred  to,  or  in  any  manner  bestowed  upon,  it  by  the  aforesaid 
executors  and  trustees  by  virtue  of  the  powers  therein  conferred  upon 
them;  and  the  said  corporation  shall  have  power  to  hold,  manage,  improve, 
dispose  of,  and  convey  all  property  at  any  time  received  or  acquired  by  it 
in  such  manner  as  may  be  best  calculated  to  carry  out  its  objects  and  pur 
poses. 

SECT.  6.  The  said  corporation  shall  accept  and  receive  all  such  money 
or  other  property  as  is  given  to  it  by  the  said  will  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  or 
shall  be  conveyed  or  transferred  to,  or  in  any  manner  bestowed  upon,  it  as 
aforesaid  by  the  aforesaid  executors  and  trustees,  subject  to  the  terms  and 
conditions  expressed  in  and  imposed  by  the  said  will  of  Samuel  J. 
Tilden,  in  respect  to  the  gift  or  gifts  therein  and  thereby  made  or  pro 
vided  for,  to  a  corporation  to  be  formed  and  to  be  known  as  the  Tilden 
Trust,  and  the  said  corporation  shall  have  power  to  make  and  enter  into  any 
obligation  or  obligations  to  secure  due  compliance  with  such  terms  and  con 
ditions. 

SECT.  7.  The  said  corporation  shall  possess  the  powers  and,  except  as 
may  be  otherwise  provided  by  this  act,  be  subject  to  the  provisions,  liabili 
ties,  and  restrictions  contained  in  the  third  title  of  the  eighteenth  chapter  of 
the  first  part  of  the  Revised  Statutes,  but  nothing  herein  contained  shall 
affect  the  rights  of  any  parties  to  any  action  now  pending  or  of  any  heir-at- 
law  of  said  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  deceased. 

SECT.  8.     This  act  shall  take  effect  immediately. 


INDEX 


A  BBOTT,  Josiah  Gardiner,  address  of 

^  the  minority  of  the  Electoral  Com 
mission,  II.,  105,  Appendix  A. 

ABOMINATIONS,  bill  of,  I.,  33. 

ADAMS,  Charles  Francis,  nominated  for 
Vice- President,  I.,  125;  letter  to  Tilden 
on  the  inauguration  of  Hayes,  II.,  107. 

ADAMS,  Henry,  Tilden's  letter  about  the 
biography  of  John  Randolph,  IE.,  277. 

ALBANY",  early  history  of,  II.,  344-353. 

ANDERSON,  Thomas  C.,  member  of  the 
Louisiana  Returning  Board,  II.,  39. 

ANTI-MASONS,  scheme  to  secure  their 
vote  for  Van  Buren,  I.,  50. 

ANTI-RENTISM,  I.,  112. 

APPENDIX  to  Supplement  No.  1,  Vol.  L, 
367 ;  No.  2,  370,  384 ;  No.  3,  371 ;  No. 
4,  380;  No.  5,  385;  No.  6,  386;  No.  7, 
392;  No.  8,  399;  Appendix  A,  origin 
of  the  Tweed  ring,  402;  Appendix  B, 
Democratic  national  platform  of  1876, 
411. 

"  ARGUS,"  Albany,  Edwin  Croswell,  edi 
tor  of,  I.,  68 ;  early  history  of  Albany, 

"R  ANCROFT,  George,  letter  to,  I.,  115. 
BANK,  the  United  States,  bill  f Di 
re-charter  of,  vetoed,  I.,  28. 

BANKS,  suspensions  of,  1837,  L,  62; 
Tilden  censures  the  legalizing  their 
suspension,  63. 

BAR  Association  of  New  York  formed, 
I.,  186. 

BARLOW,  Gen.  Francis  C.,  interview 
with  Cowgill,  II.,  28;  not  "recog 
nized  "  by  Hayes,  31. 

BARNBURNERS,  L,  3. 

BARNUM,  Senator,  inquiry  for  news  at 
the  "  Times  "  office,  II.,  9. 

BENEDICT,  Judge  Charles  L.,  orders  the 
income-tax  suit  discontinued,  II.,  259. 

BIDDLE,  Nicholas,  I.,  55. 

BIGELOW,  John,  letter  to,  from  W.  C. 
Bryant,  I.,  301 ;  executor  and  trustee, 
II.,  361. 

BLAINE,  James  G.,  surprised  that  the 
Democrats  voted  for  the  Electoral  Com 
mission,  II.,  74. 

BLANC,  Louis,  dines  with  Tilden;  his 
visit  to  Louis  Napoleon  in  prison,  II., 
138 ;  queer  experience  as  a  lecturer 
in  London,  140;  Cavaignac  and  his 
mother,  141. 

BLATCIIFORD,  Judge,  II.,  229. 


BOLINGBROKE  quoted,  I.,  16. 

BOUTON,  J.  W.,  books  purchased  for 
Tildeu,  II.,  349. 

BRADLEY,  Judge,  sustains  the  validity  of 
the  Tilden  Trust,  II.,  364. 

BRADY,  Justice,  II.,  362. 

BRECKINRIDGE,  John  C.,  nominated  for 
President,  I.,  152. 

BREWSTER,  Elder,  L,  6. 

BROADWAY  railroad,  Jacob  Sharp's 
charter,  II.,  331 ;  repealability  of,  332, 
334,  336. 

BROWN,  Judge,  declares  the  Tilden 
Trust  invalid,  II.,  364. 

BRYANT,  William  Cullen,  I.,  98;  enter 
tained  by  Governor  Tilden  and  re 
ceived  by  the  Legislature,  264  ;  The 
"  Evening  Post  "  on  the  opponents  of 
Tilden;  attends  Fifth-avenue  Hotel 
conference,  297 ;  declines  a  place  on 
the  Tilden  electoral  ticket,  301. 

BUFFALO,  Tilden  addresses  Board  of 
Trade  of,  L,  269. 

BURDELL,  Dr.  Harvey,  murder  of,  I., 
135 ;  Tilden's  defence  of  his  heirs. 
135. 

BUTLER,  William  Allen,  on  the  expos 
ure  of  the  Tweed  ring,  I.,  207 ;  ap 
pointed  on  Municipal-Reform  Com 
mission,  266. 

pAIIILL,  John,  a  clerk  of  Mr.  Tilden, 

^  II.,  348 ;  books  read  by  him  to  Mr. 
Tilden,  348,  note. 

CALHOUN,  John  C.,  leader  of  the  Nulli- 
ficrs,  L,  33 ;  his  attitude  toward  the 
Anti-Masons,  50. 

CAMBRELING,  C.  C.,  I.,  114. 

CAMERON,  J.  D.,  Secretary  of  War, 
orders  troops  into  "  doubtful  States," 
IE.,  17. 

CAMPBELL,  Hon.  John,  urges  renomi- 
nation  of  Tilden  for  President  in  1884, 
II.,  407. 

CANALS,  Tilden  opposes  the  enlarge 
ment,  I.,  177;  special  message  in  re 
lation  to  mismanagement  of,  258 ; 
appoints  a  canal  investigating  commis 
sion,  259;  Tilden  to  Hill  against  their 
enlargement,  IE.,  338,  339. 

CANTERBURY,  Tilden  visits  the  home  of 
his  ancestors,  II.,  130. 

CARLISLE,  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  letter  to,  from  Tilden, 
about  coast  defences,  II.,  306. 


436 


INDEX 


CARTER,  James  C.,  about  Tilclen,  I.,  148; 
appointed  on  Municipal-Reform  Com 
mission,  266,  307;  counsel  for  the 
Tilclen  Trust,  II.,  362,  364;  Tilden's 
reputed  indecision,  386. 

CASS,  Lewis,  nominated  for  the  presi 
dency,  I.,  123. 

CASSANAVE,  G.,  member  of  Louisiana 
Returning  Board,  II.,  39. 

CASSANDRA'S  lover,  II.,  94. 

CAVAIGNAC,  brother  of  General,  II.,  141. 

CHAILLE",  Professor,  the  number  of  law 
ful  voters  in  New  Orleans,  II.,  52. 

CHANDLER,  William  E.,  calls  at  the 
Fifth-avenue  Hotel  the  morning  after 
the  presidential  election  of  1876,  II., 
11;  telegraphs  governors  of  doubtful 
States,  13  ;  goes  to  Florida,  17  ;  sends 
for  more  money,  21. 

CHANDLER,  Zacnariah,  visited  at  Fifth- 
avenue  Hotel  the  morning  after  the 
presidential  election  of  1876,  II.,  11 ; 
"  takes  charge  "  of  Florida,  17. 

CHESTER,  Joseph  Samuel,  I.,  3. 

CHILDS,  George  "W.,  reports  Grant  to 
have  said  Tilden  was  elected,  It.,  60; 
that  General  Grant  originated  the 
Electoral  Commission,  61. 

CHURCII,  SanfordE.,  candidate  for  gov 
ernor,  I.,  225 ;  John  Kelly's  opinion  of, 
I.,  226. 

CIPHER  despatches,  II.,  170;  Tilden's 
letter  about,  to  the  "Herald,"  175; 
examination  before  congressional  com 
mittee,  182. 

CIVIL  service,  first  practical  example 
of,  in  this  country,  I.,  303;  Tildeu's 
views  on,  304. 

CLAY,  Henry,  introduces  the  compromise 
tariff,  I.,  31;  candidate  for  the  presi 
dency,  109. 

CLEVELAND,  Grover,  nominated  for 
President,  II.,  277,  280,  284,  285. 

CLEWS,  Henry,  &  Co.,  financial  agents 
of  government,  IL,  2. 

COBDEN  Club,  Tilden  elected  a  member 
of,  I.,  37,  note;  IL,  129. 

COLUMBIA  County  fair,  Tilden's  address 
at,  L,  277. 

"  COLUMBIA  Sentinel,"  Tilden  on  the  pro 
tective  system,  L,  34;  favors  Van 
Buren  for  President,  37. 

CONFERENCE,  the  Fifth-avenue,  L,  296. 

CONKLIXG,  Senator  Roscoe,  excluded 
from  the  Electoral  Commission,  IL, 
83,  336. 

CONNOLLY,  the  comptroller,  resigns,  L, 
190. 

CONSTITUTIONAL  convention  of  1845, 
Tilden  elected  to,  L,  113. 

CONSTITUTIONAL  convention  of  1867, 
Tilden  a  delegate,  opposes  enlargement 
of  the  Erie  canal,  L,  177;  reply  to 
Waldo  Hutching  180. 

CONVENTION,  Democratic  State,  of  1876, 
recommends  Tilden  for  President,  L, 


295 ;  convention,  national,  at  St.  Louis 

nominates  Tilden  for  President,  305. 
CONVERSE,  George  S.,  urges  renomina- 

tion  of  Tilden  in  1884,  II.,  408. 
COOPER,      Edward,      Municipal- Reform 

Commission,  L,  266. 
COOPER,    Peter,    vote    of  a    Louisiana 

elector  for  President  cast  for,  IL,  101. 
COWEN,  Judge  Esek,  L,  67. 
CROSWELL,  Edwin,   editor  of  "  Albany 

Argus,"  L,   68. 

CUMBERLAND  Coal  Co.,  Tilden's  argu 
ment  for,  L,  143. 
CUNNINGHAM,  Mrs.,  vs.  the  heirs  of  Dr. 

Burdell,  L,  135;  Tilden'  defence  of  the 

heirs,  135. 
CURTIS,  George  William,  abandons  the 

Civil  Service  Commission,  II.,  3. 
CUTLER,  G.  Albert,  urges  renomination 

of  Tilden  for  President  in  1884,  IL, 

408. 

T)AVIS,  J.  Bancroft,  L,  U7. 

DAVIS,  Judge,  reckoned  upon  as 
one  of  the  Electoral  Commission,  IL, 
63;  chosen  U.S.  Senator,  64. 

DENNIS,  S.  G.,  testimony  before  con 
gressional  committee,  IL,  23. 

DERBY,  J.  C.,  letter  from  W.  C.  Bryant 
to,  L,  302. 

DICKENS,  Charles,  IL,  105. 

Dix,  Governor  John  A.,  his  administra 
tion  a  disappointment,  L,  219  ;  renomi- 
nated  for  Governor,  232 ;  Horatio  Scv- 
mour  on  Dix,  232,  233;  address  at 
the  inauguration  of  Tilden,  239. 

DORSHEIMER,  William,  correspondence 
with  Tilden,  IL,  381. 

DOUBLEDAY,  Abner,  L,  7. 

DOUGLAS,  Stephen  A.,  nominated  for 
President,  L,  152. 

"17 AST    INDIA   Company,  Elisha  Yale, 

-^     Governor  of,  L,  8. 

EATON,  Ann,  grandmother  of  Elisha 
Yale,  who  gave  its  name  to  Yale  Col 
lege,  L,  9. 

EATON,  Theophilus,  Deputy  Governor  of 
Merchant  Adventurers,  L,  8;  called 
the  "  Father  of  New  Haven,"  married 
Anne,  widow  of  David  Yale  and 
daughter  of  the  Bishop  of  Chester,  ib. 

ELECTORAL  Commission,  IL,  62; 
Tilden's  view  of,  79;  Wattcrson's 
view  of,  87;  action  on  the  Florida 
case,  89;  action  in  case  of  Louisiana, 
92;  on  the  Oregon  case,  92;  for  sale, 
95, 97 ;  Abbott's  address  of  the  minority 
of,  397. 

ELECTORAL  vote,  the  mode  of  counting 
prior  to  1865,  IL,  58  ;  Tilden's  history 
of,  260. 

ELLIS,  John  W.,  IL,  220,  222. 

"  ENCYCLOPAEDIA  Heraldica,"  L,  4. 

EATON  Hall  visited,  II.  126. 

EVARTS,  William  M.,  appointed  on  the 


INDEX 


437 


Municipal-Reform  Commission,  I., 
266 ;  one  of  the  visiting  statesmen  in 
New  Orleans,  II.,  53;  appointed 
Secretary  of  State  by  Hayes,  53. 

"  EVENING  Post,"  Tilden's  letters  to 
William  Kent,  I.,  154;  Tilclcn's  letter 
to,  in  1863,  171. 

EVERETT.  Edward,  letter  to  Tildcn,  I., 
162. 

EWING,  Thomas,  urges  renomination  of 
Tildcn  in  1881  for  President,  II.,  410. 

"I7AIRCHILD,  Charles  S.f  letter  to 
Tildcn,  L,  318;  Tilden's  reply,  318. 

FERRY,  Senator,  President  of  the  Senate, 
receives  the  electoral  vote  of  Louisi 
ana  and  returns  it,  II.,  97. 

FILLMORE,  Millard,  elected  Vice-Presi 
dent,  I.,  125. 

FISK,  James,  Jr.,  I.,  147. 

FLAGG,  Azariah  C.,  elected  comptroller 
of  New  York  citv,  L,  131 ;  contested  hy 
Giles,  131. 

FLORIDA,  canvass  of  vote  in,  II.,  23; 
frauds  at  election,  24;  action  of 
Electoral  Commission  on,  89. 

FOLGER,  Charles  J.,  letter  to  Commis 
sioner  of  Internal  Revenue,  II.,  251; 
letter  to,  from  the  Attorney-General 
of  U.S.,  252;  letter  from,  to  the  At 
torney-General,  253. 

FOLLETT,  Chief  Justice,  concurs  in  the 
invalidity  of  the  Tildeii  Trust,  II.,  364. 

FOORD,  John,  II.,  8. 

FORSTER,  Hon.  W.  E.,  entertains  Tilden 
at  lunch,  II.,  128;  his  opinion  of  the 
late  L>uke  of  Wellington,  128. 

Fox,  Charles  James,  note  in  a  fly-leaf  of 
Gibbon's  "  History,"  II.,  117. 

FRANKLIN,  Benjamin,  advice  to  his  son, 
II.,  76. 

FREE-SOIL  party,  corner-stone  of,  I., 
119;  New  York  delegation  withdraws 
from  the  Baltimore  convention,  122; 
their  protest,  122;  Tilden's  report 
thereon  to  the  Utica  convention,  J23. 

FREMONT,  John  C.,  nominated  for  Presi 
dent,  I.,  151. 

ft  AMBETTA,  visit  to,  II.,  126. 

^     GARLAND,  Senator,  solicits  a  place 

in  the  Cabinet,  II.,  289;  Tilden's  letter 

to,  289. 
GARROD,  Dr.,  Tildcn  visits,  at  Lowestoft, 

II.,  131. 
GENEALOGY  of  the  Tildens,   II.,    350; 

Supplement,  I.,  157. 

GIBBON  and  Charles  James  Fox,  II.,  117. 
GILES,  Mr.,  Know-Nothing  candidate  for 

comptroller,  contests  Flagg's  election, 

L,  131. 

GLADSTONE,  Tilden  on,  II.,  337. 
GODWIN,   Parkc,    member  of  Fifth-av 
enue  conference,  I.,  297;   his  account 

of  it,  299. 
GOUGE,  Mr.,  I.,  93. 


GOULD,  Jay,  L,  147. 

GOULD,  Miss  Anna  T.,  books  read  by,  to 
Tilden,  II.,  348;  Appendix  C,  411. 

GRANT,  President,  his  administration  a 
disappointment,  I.,  218;  II.,  1 ;  thought 
Tilden  was  elected,  18,60;  telegraphs 
General  Sherman,  18 ;  Electoral  Com 
mission,  38;  his  reception  in  England, 

GRAYSTONE,  purchase  of,  II.,  261. 

GREEN,  Andrew  II.,  appointed  comp 
troller  in  place  of  Connoll}',  I.,  192  ;  II., 
338;  executor  and  trustee  of  Tilden's 
will  and  trustee  of  Tilden  Trust,  361. 

GRIFFIN,  Dr.,  President  of  Williams 
College,  I.,  22. 

GROESBECK,  Hon.  W.  S.,  urging  renom 
ination  of  Tilden  for  President  in 
1884,  LI.,  405. 

TJAIGHT,  Judge,  concurs  in  holding 
-  Tildcn  Trust  invalid,  II.,  364. 

HAMMERS,  S.  S.  W.,  letter  from,  to 
Tilden,  II.,  273;  letter  to,  from  Tildcn, 
274. 

HANCOCK,  Major-General,  nominated  for 
the  presidency,  II.,  272. 

HAND,  Samuel,  municipal-reform  com 
missioner,  I.,  266. 

HARD-SHELLS,  L,  3. 

HARRISON,  William  Henry,  elected  Presi 
dent,  I.,  85. 

HAYES,  Rutherford  B.,  nominated  for 
President,  I.,  300;  representatives  in 
Florida,  II.,  22;  rewards  the  conspira 
tors  in  Florida,  24;  how  Hayes  elec 
tors  were  secured  in  Louisiana,  33; 
how  the  conspirators  in  Louisiana 
were  rewarded,  53. 

HENDRICKS,  Thomas  A.,  I.,  305. 

HENRY,  li.  R.,  II.,  286. 

HERETER,  Hon.  Isaac,  death  of,  II.,  273. 

HEWITT,  Abram  S.,  announces  the  plan 
of  an  Electoral  Commission  to  Tilden, 
II.,  75;  telegrams  to  Cooper,  78,79; 
reply  in  Congress  to  Garficld,  95. 

HOADLEY,  George,  urges  renomination 
of  Tilden  for  President  in  1881,  II., 
406. 

HOADLEY,  Mrs.  Mary  P.,  urges  renomi 
nation  of  Tilden  for  President  in  1884, 
II.,  406. 

HOME  rule  for  Ireland,  Tildcn  on,  II., 
337. 

HUNKERS,  I.,  3. 

HUNTINGTON,  Mr.,  died  of  small-pox, 
I.,  43 ;  Tilden's  account  of,  44. 

HUNTINGTON,  W.  II.,  the  funeral  of 
Thiers,  II.,  135. 

INCOME  tax,  II.,  225;  prosecution  by 
•  the  government,  227 ;  Tildeu's  mem 
oranda  for  counsel,  229. 

IRVING,  Washington,  attacked  in  the 
"  Plaindealer "  hy  William  Lcggett, 
I.,  58. 


438 


INDEX 


TACKSON,  President,  issues  a  procla- 
mation  of  warning  to  the  Nullificrs, 
L,  33. 

JACKSONIS  AMICUS,  I.,  56. 

JANES,  Bathshcba,  I.,  6. 

JEFFERSON,  Thomas,  Mrs.  Younglove 
purchases  a  copy  of  his  writings,  I.,  15  ; 
S.  J.  Tilclen's  impressions  of  him,  16 ; 
Jefferson's  views  of  civil  service,  II., 
297. 

JEWETT,  D.  J.,  M.A.,  letter  to  supervis 
ors  of  registration,  II.,  37;  testifies  to 
frauds  in  Louisiana,  42. 

JONES,  Polly  Younglove,  marries  Elam 
Tildcn,  I.,  7. 

JONES,  Samuel,  marries  Parthcnia  Pat 
terson,  I.,  7 ;  father  of  Polly  Young- 
love  Jones,  the  wife  of  Elam  Tilden,  9. 

JONES,  William,  settled  in  New  Haven 
in  1660,  L,  8. 

JORDAN,  Conrad,  letter  from  Tilden,  II., 
294. 

JULIAN,  George  "W.,  unsuccessful  candi 
date  for  office,  11.,  313;  letter  to,  from 
Tilden,  314. 

TTASSON,  John  A.,  II.,  22. 

•  KELLOGG,  William  Pitt,  II.,  3,  34, 
37,  45 ;  the  forged  electoral  certif 
icates,  98. 

KENNER,  Louis  M.,  member  of  Return 
ing  Board,  II.,  39. 

KENT,  Chancellor,  reads  the  final  preface 
of  his  "  Commentaries  "  to  Tildcn,  I., 
26. 

KENT,  County  of,  I.,  3;  estates  in,  bear 
ing  the  name  of  Tilden  more  than  six 
hundred  years,  4. 

KENT,  William,  letter  to,  from  Tilden, 
L,  154. 

KERNAN,  Senator  Francis,  letter  to,  II., 
120. 

KILLARNET,  Lakes  of,  Tilden's  visit  to, 
II.,  120. 

KING,  Preston,  letter  to  Tildcn,  I.,  162. 

KNOW-NOTHING  party,  I.,  106. 

T  AWRENCE,  Cornelius  W.,    elected 
•^     Mayor,  I.,  41 ;  Tilden's  opinion  of 

the  nomination,  42. 
LAWRENCE,  Justice,  sustains  the  validity 

of  the  Tilden  Trust,  II.,  362. 
LECKY,  Mr.,  cited,  L,  163. 
LED  YARD,  Lewis   Cass,    trustee  of  the 

Tildcn  Trust,  II.,  361. 
LEE,   Gideon,   declines  nomination    for 

Mayor,  I.,  42. 
LEE,    Henry,    Nullifiers'   candidate    for 

Vice-President,  I.,  93 ;  wants  a  copy  of 

Tilden's  speech  against  United  States 

Bank,  93. 
LEGISLATURE,  Tilden  elected  to,  I.,  112; 

report  on  the  anti-rent  troubles,  113. 
LIBRARY,  Tilden's,  II.,  348. 
LIEB,  Hermann,  urges  renomination  of 

Tilden  for  President  in  1881,  II.,  406. 


LINCOLN,  Abraham,  nominated  for 
President,  L,  152;  Tilden  opposes  his 
election,  153  ;  election  of,  160. 

Louis  Blanc.     See  Blanc,  Louis. 

LOUISIANA,  federal  interference  in,  de 
nounced,  I.,  266;  frauds  at  election, 
II.,  37 ;  Democratic  voters  disenfran 
chised  in,  49;  action  of  Electoral  Com 
mission  on  her  contested  electoral  vote, 
91 ;  forged  certificates  sent  to  Washin^- 
ton,  99. 

LOWELL,  James  Russell,  Tempora  Mu- 
tantur,  II.,  115;  one  of  the  Hayes 
electors,  116;  reasons  for  voting  for 
Hayes. 

]U~ANNING,  Daniel,  telegram  to  Til- 
-  den,  II.,  271 ;  visit  to  Graystone 
for  Cleveland,  280;  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  292 ;  letters  from  Tildcn,  291, 
293,  303;  letter  to  Tilden,  304;  letter 
to  Tildcn,  216;  letter  from  Tilden,  317. 

MARBLE,  Manton,  tells  how  the  scheme 
of  an  Electoral  Commission  was  re 
vealed  to  Mr.  Tildcn,  II.,  75. 

MARCY,  William  L.,  Democratic  candi 
date  for  governor,  I.,  29;  censured  for 
recommending  the  State  banks  to  sus 
pend  in  1837,  63;  appointed  Secretary 
of  War,  110,  111. 

"  MARSHALL,"  nom  de  plume  of  Tilden 
in  defending  President  Van  Burcn's 
message  recommending  the  indepen 
dent  treasury,  I.,  65. 

MARTIAL,  II.,  117. 

MATTHEWS,  Stanley,  II.,  22. 

MCCLERNAND,  Gen.  John  A.,  President 
of  the  St.  Louis  convention,  I.,  305 ; 
urges  renomination  of  Tildeu  for  Pres 
ident  in  1884,  II.,  405. 

McCoRMiCK,  Cyrus,  urges  the  renomina 
tion  of  Tildcn  in  1884,  II.,  409. 

McHENRY,  James,  I.,  147. 

McLANE,  Minister,  complaint  of  recep 
tion  given  to  President  Van  Buren  in 
London,  II.,  127. 

McLEAN,  Judge,  his  attitude  toward  the 
Anti-Masons,  I.,  50. 

McLiN,  testimony  before  congressional 
committee,  II.,  22. 

MESSAGE,  Tilden's  first  annual,  L,  250; 
canal-reform  message,  258;  municipal- 
reform  message,  265 ;  second  annual 
message,  286. 

MEXICO,  war  with,  I.,  117. 

MONROE  Doctrine,  history  of,  323. 

MOORE,  Thomas,  "The  answering  fu 
ture,"  II.,  120 ;  description  of  his  birth 
place,  123  ;  criticised  by  a  countryman, 
124;  Lord  Houghton's  story,  125. 

MORGAN,  J-  S.,  Tilden  presides  at  dinner 
given  to,  II.,  262. 

MORRIS,  Gouvcrneur,  quoted,  I.,  16. 

MORTON,  Senator,  his  plan  of  counting 
the  electoral  vote,  II.,  58;  manipulates 
the  electoral  vote  of  Louisiana,  102. 


INDEX 


439 


MUNICIPAL  reform,  Governor's  mes 
sage,  I.,  265;  commission  to  report 
amendments,  266. 

MUNSTER,  Count,  German  ambassador, 
objects  to  yielding  precedence  to  ex- 
President  Grant,  II.,  127. 

"DATIVE  AMERICAN  party,!.,  106. 
NEW  LEBANON,  description  of,  I., 

12 ;  schools,  19. 
NEW  YORK  State,  its  natural  resources, 

I.,  286. 
NOYES,  E.  F.,  II.,  22 ;  his  interview  with 

Dennis,  25;  sent  Minister  to  France, 

26. 
NULLIFICATION,     President      Jackson's 

warning  to  Nullifiers  and  message  to 

Congress,   L,   33;    Tilden's  article  on 

"  Nullification  and  the  Opposition,"  342. 

fYCONOR,     Charles,      in     Giles      vs. 

w  Flagg,  I.,  132;  his  opinion  of  Til- 
den's  argument,  135;  defends  Messrs. 
Tremaine  and  Peckham,  206 ;  bequeaths 
"  My  own  Cases  "  to  the  Law  Institute  ; 
origin  of  rings,  207,  Appendix  A; 
letter  refusing  to  support  Greeley, 
218 ;  nominated  for  the  presidency,  219, 
note;  letter  to  the  Governor  about 
his  policy,  243 ;  not  a  party  leader,  II., 
113. 

ORR,  Alexander  E.,  trustee  of  the  Tildcu 
Trust,  II.,  361. 

O'SULLIVAN,  John  L.,  established  the 
"Daily Morning  News  "  with  Tilden, 
L,  109. 

OTTENDORFER,  Oswald,  appointed  on 
Municipal-Reform  Commission,  1.,  266. 

"DARKER,  Judge,  concurs  in  holding 

x      the  Tilden  Trust  invalid,  II.,  364. 

PATTERSON,  Polly,  married  Moses 
Yoimglove,  I.,  9. 

PECKHAM,  Wheeler  II.,  defended  by 
O'Couor  for  his  charges  for  services 
in  the  Tweed  prosecutions,  I.,  207. 

PELTON,  Mrs.  Augusta,  letter  from  Mr. 
Tilden  to,  II.,  130. 

PELTON,  Mrs.  Mary,  letter  to,  from  Mr. 
Tilden,  II.,  131,  156. 

PENNSYLVANIA  Coal  Co.  and  Delaware 
&  Hudson  Canal  Co.,  Tilden's  defence 
of,  I.,  138. 

PHILLIPS,  Samuel  F.,  letter  from  Ed 
wards  Pierrepont,  II.,  239. 

PIERREPONT,  Edwards,  account  of  the 
reception  of  ex-Presidents  Van  Buren 
and  Grant  in  England,  II.,  127; 
special  counsel  for  the  government 
in  the  income-tax  suit,  237;  letter 
from,  to  S.  F.  Phillips,  Acting 
Attorney-General  of  the  United  States, 
239 ;  letter  from,  to  S.  L.  Woodford, 
249. 

PINKSTON,  Eliza,  II.,  46;  her  character, 
48. 


"  PLAINDEALER,"  Van  Buren's  inaugural 
attacked  in,  by  Leggett,  I.,  56 ;  Tilden's 
reply  to  it,  56. 

POLK,  James  K.,  nominated  for  Presi 
dent,  I.,  107. 

POTTER,  Clarkson  N.,  report  of  congres 
sional  committee  of  investigation,  II., 
56. 

POTTER,  Judge,  votes  for  validity  of 
Tilden  Trust,  II.,  368. 

T>  AGUET,  Condy,  I.,  93. 

u    RANDALL,  Samuel  J.,  urges  renom-- 

ination  of  Tilden  for  President  in  1884, 

II.,  408. 
RANDOLPH,  L.Y.  F.,  appointed  secretary 

of  the  executors  of   the   Tilden    will 

and    of   the    trustees    of   the    Tilden 

Trust,  II.,  367. 
RAUM,   Green  B.,  letter  to,  from  U.S. 

District  Attorney,  II.,  244;    letter  to 

Stuart  L.  Woodford,  248. 
REID,  John  C.,  his  account  of  the  scene 

at  the  "Times"  office  the  night  of  the 

presidential  election,  II.,  8. 
REPUBLICAN  party,  formation  of,  I.,  151; 

nominates  John  C.  Fremont  for  Presi 
dent,  151. 
RETURNING  Board  of  Louisiana,  II.,  34; 

required  to  meet  at  New  Orleans,  34. 
ROBINSON,   Governor,   message  on   the 

counting  the  electoral  vote,  II.,  66. 

gCIILOSSER'S    "History,"    cited,   I., 

SCIIURZ,  Carl,  member  of  Fifth-avenue 

Hotel    conference,  I.,  297;  author  of 

its  address,  297. 
SCOTT,  W.  L.,    urges    renomination  of 

Tilden  for  President  in  1884,  II.,  508. 
SECESSION,  Tilden's  views  of,  L,  165, 173. 
SEYMOUR,  Horatio,  letter  to  Tilden,  I., 

194;    nominated    for    President,   211; 

letter  to  Tilden,  227 ;  discourse  on  the 

election  frauds,  II.,  84;  letter  to,  from 

Tilden,  275,  320. 
SHAKERS,  Society  of,  at  New  Lebanon, 

I.,  13 ;  Tilden  writes  a  pamphlet  about 

them,  79. 
SHARP,  Jacob,  and  Broadway  Railroad, 

II.,  331. 
SHERIDAN,  General,    interference    with 

the     independence    of  the    Louisiana 

Legislature,    I.,    266;    denounced    in 

Governor's  message,  266. 
SHERMAN,  John,  II.,  22. 
SIBLEY,   Mark,  letter  from  Tilden,  II., 

321. 

SIMON,  Jules,  quoted,  II.,  372. 
SMALLEY,  Mr.,  accompanies  Tilden  to 

the  funeral  of  Thiers,  II.,  135. 
SMITH,  George  W.,  II.,   189;  executor 

and  trustee  of  Tilden's  will  and  trustee 

of  Tilden  Trust,  311. 
STANTON,   Secretary  of    War.  Tilden's 

advice  to,  I.,  169. 


440 


INDEX 


STERNE,  Simon,  municipal-reform  com 
missioner,  I.,  266. 

STEVENSON,  Governor,  II.,  273. 

STOUGIITON,  Mr.,  visiting  statesman  at 
New  Orleans,  II.,  40 ;  defines  a  "  cleri 
cal  error,"  41. 

ST.  PATRICK'S  Cathedral,  II.,  122. 

SUPPLEMENT,  Tilden's  genealogical 
record,  I.,  317;  appendix  to,  367  to 
369. 

SYRACUSE,  Tilden's  address  from  the 
cars  at,  I.,  270. 

SWIFT,  Dean,  Tilden  visits  St.  Patrick's 
Cathedral,  II.,  122. 

T'ALMADGE,   Senator    Nathaniel,    at 
New  Lebanon,  I.,  76. 

TAXATION,  reduction  of,  I.,  269. 

TAYLOR,  Gen.  Zachary,  elected  Presi 
dent,  I.,  125. 

TEXAS,  annexation  of,  and  war  with 
Mexico,  I.,  117. 

TIIIERS,  funeral  of,  II.,  135. 

TILDEN,  genealogical  history  of  the 
family  of,  I.,  2;  name  peculiar  to 
county  of  Kent,  England,  supplement, 
317;  II.,  350. 

TILDEN,  Elam,  married  Polly  Younglove 
Jones,  I.,  7 ;  born  at  New  Lebanon, 
12;  the  Tilden  homestead,  13;  letter 
to,  from  Silas  Wright,  77  ;  death,  101 ; 
supplement,  317. 

TILDEN,  Mrs.  Elam,  lived  with  the 
Youngloves,  I.,  13;  supplement,  317. 

TILDEN,  Henrietta,  I.,  52;  letter  to, 
about  marriage,  84. 

TILDEN,  Henry,  business  troubles,  I., 
174  ;  letter  from  Samuel,  175. 

TILDEN,  John,  son  of  Isaac  and  Rebecca 
Tilden,  I.,  6;  marries  Bathsheba  Janes, 
ib. ;  moved  to  New  Lebanon,  ib. ;  death, 
ib.;  served  in  the  French  war,  ib.; 
his  musket,  ib.  ;  his  eldest  daughter 
marries  Major  Ann  Doublcday,  ib.,  7, 
supplement,  317. 

TILDEN,  John,  of  Marden,  I.,  3 ;  supple 
ment,  317. 

TILDEN,  Moses,  business  troubles,  I., 
174;  illness  and  death,  II.,  224. 

TILDEN,  Nathaniel,  embarks  for  America, 
I.,  5;  Mayor  of  Tenterdcn,  ib.,  supple 
ment,  317 ;  settles  at  Scituate,  in  Mas 
sachusetts,  5;  ruling  elder  in  First 
Church  in  Scituate,  ib. ;  makes  the  first 
conveyance  of  land  recorded  in  Scitu 
ate,  ib.  ;  married  Lydia  Bourne,  ib,, 
supplement,  317. 

TILDEN,  Samuel  Jones,  I.,  1 ;  one  of  the 
grandchildren  of  John  Tilden  and 
Bathsheba  Janes,  6;  his  first  experi 
ence  as  a  sporting  man,  ib.  ;  illness  in 
infancy,  17;  early  education,  19;  sent 
to  school  at  Williamstown,  21 ;  goes  to 
New  York,  23 ;  takes  lessons  in  elocu 
tion,  25;  Mr.  Halstead  prescribes  for 
him,  ib. ;  meets  Chancellor  Kent,  26 ; 


returns  to  New  Lebanon,  ib.;  first 
essay  as  a  writer  for  the  press,  27 ;  his 
Broadside  signed  "  George  Clinton  " 
against  the  recharter  of  the  United 
States  Bank,  29;  article  on  "Nullifi 
cation  and  Opposition,"  34 ;  early  views 
of  the  protective  system,  ib. ;  elected 
an  honorary  member  of  the  Cobden 
Club,  37 ;  advocates  Van  Buren  for  the 
presidency,  ib. ;  writes  address  to  the 
young  men  of  Columbia  county,  38 ; 
writes  "  The  Treasury  is  an  Executive 
Department,"  41 ;  enters  Yale  College, 
46;  death  of  his  brother  George,  48; 
enters  the  New  York  University, 
49;  how  to  secure  the  support  of  the 
Anti-Masons  for  Van  Buren,  50;  medi 
tates  a  travel  cure,  52 ;  disciplines 
Leggett,  56 ;  defends  the  Independent 
Treasury^  Message  of  President  Van 
Buren,  65 ;  prepares  an  address  for  the 
Democratic-Republican  mechanics  and 
workingmen,  68 ;  enters  the  University 
Law  School,  75 ;  articled  with  John  W. 
Edmonds,  75;  crosses  swords  with 
Senator  Talmadge,  76;  advises  his 
sister  Henrietta  about  her  love  affairs, 
81 ;  speech  at  New  Lebanon  for  Van 
Buren,  86;  discouraged  by  ill  health, 
91;  admitted  to  the  bar,  97;  writes  for 
"  Democratic  Review,"  ib.  ;  speech 
•against  a  coercive  bankrupt  law,  98; 
invests  in  law  books,  99;  death  of 
his  father,  101 ;  memoi'able  journey 
from  Albany,  104 ;  establishes  th'e 
"  Daily  News,"  109 ;  election  of  Presi 
dent  Polk  and  dissatisfaction  with  his 
administration,  111 ;  elected  to  the  Leg 
islature,  112 ;  chairman  of  the  commit 
tee  on  anti-rentism  and  reports  the 
basis  of  an  adjustment,  113;  elected  to 
the  constitutional  convention  of  1846, 
113;  contest  with  Cambreliug,  114; 
the  address  of  the  Democratic  members 
of  the  Legislature  of  1848,  118;  nomi 
nated  for  attorney-general,  127;  his 
reply  to  Sutherland,  130;  his  defence 
of  AzariahC.  Flagg,  131;  defends  the 
heirs  of  Dr.  Burdell,  135 ;  defence  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Coal  Co.,  138 ;  pro 
fessional  habits,  prices,  etc.,  145;  de 
clines  to  join  the  Republican  party, 
151 ;  opposes  the  election  of  Lincoln, 
153 ;  letter  to  William  Kent,  154  ;  his 
reasons  for  adhering  to  the  Democratic 
party,  161;  views  of  secession,  165; 
his  theory  of  conducting  the  war  of 
the  Rebellion,  168;  letter  to  the 
"  Evening  Post"  in  1863, 171 ;  delegate 
to  the  constitutional  convention  of  1867, 
177 ;  resists  enlargement  of  the  Erie 
canal,  ib.;  negro  suffrage,  178;  reply 
to  Waldo  Hutchins,  180 ;  the  struggle 
with  the  Tweed  ring,  182 ;  elected  to 
the  Legislature  in  1871,  194;  opposes 
the  charter  proposed  by  the  committee 


INDEX 


441 


of  seventy,  196;  visits  Europe,  220; 
nominated  for  governor,  228 ;  elected, 
23 1;  his  inauguration,  239 ;  first  mes 
sage,  250 ;  the  canal  message,  258 ; 
municipal-reform  message,  266;  de 
nounces  interference  of  federal  troops 
in  Louisiana,  267;  vacation  tour 
through  the  canal  counties,  269;  re 
ceives  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws 
from  Yale  College,  274;  address  at 
Columbia  County^  fair,  278  ;  address  at 
Central  New  York  fair,  281 ;  cerebral 
attack,  285;  second  annual  message, 
288 ;  recommended  by  the  New  York 
State  convention  for  President,  295; 
nominated  for  President,  305,  supple 
ment,  317;  opposes  the  Electoral 
Commission,  II. ,  65;  Governor  Robin- 
son's  message,  66;  telegrams  to 
Hewitt,  79 ;  reply  to  Charles  Francis 
Adams,  108 ;  why  he  did  not  swear  in 
as  President,  111;  sails  for  Europe, 
119 ;  visits  the  Lakes  of  Killarney,  120 ; 
Dublin,  121  ;  Paris,  and  attends  the 
funeral  of  Thiers,  135;  interview  with 
Gambetta,  133 ;  dines  Louis  Blanc, 
138;  returns  to  New  York,  142;  the 
Indian  Corn  Sp'cech,  ib. ;  the  trials  and 
temptations  of  a  bachelor  millionaire, 
145 ;  letter  to  the  "  Herald  "  about  the 
cipher  despatches,  175 ;  letter  to  chair 
man  of  the  congressional  committee, 
179;  examination  by  congressional 
committee,  182;  inco"me-tax  persecu 
tion,  225;  memoranda  for  counsel, 
229;  income-tax  suit  discontinued, 
259;  purchases  Graystone,  261 ;  letter 
declining  a  renomination  for  the  presi 
dency,  233  ;  reply  to  Daniel  Manning, 
272;  declines  a  renomination  again, 
281;  letter  to  Garland,  289;  letters  to 
Manning  while  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury,  291,  293;  Jefferson's  views  of 
civil  service,  297 ;  letter  to  Manning, 
303,  305 ;  letter  on  national  defences, 
303;  letter  to  Henry  Watterson,  311; 
discourages  his  nephew  from  embark 
ing  in  politics,  315 ;  health,  his  descrip 
tion  of,  321,  322 ;  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
323  ;  letter  to  Governor  Hill  on  repeal- 
ability  of  the  Broadway  Railroad 
charter,  332,  331,  336;  notes  against 
canal  enlargement,  340;  last  davs, 
317;  books  that  he  read,  348,  Appen 
dix  C;  death,  356;  funeral,  358;  his 
will,  339,  Appendix  D;  his  estate, 
359;  characteristics,  372;  correspond 
ence  with  Dorsheimer,  381 ;  his  talent 
as  a  negotiator,  389 ;  as  a  party  leader, 
390 ;  religion,  392. 

TILDEN,  Simon,  of  Benenden,  I.,  3,  sup 
plement,  317. 

TILDEN,   Stephen,  youngest  son  of  Na 
thaniel,  L,  6,  supplement,  317. 

TILDEN,  Thomas  of,  I.,  3,  supplement, 
317. 


TILDEN,  William  Burton,  L,  10;  his 
widow,  Lady  Tilden,  10,  supplement, 
317. 

TILDEN  Trust,  incorporated  and  organ 
ized,  II.,  361 ;  the  validity  of  the  trust 
contested,  362;  declared 'invalid  by  the 
Court  of  Appeals,  361;  letters  to  the 
city  authorities  in  reference  to  a  site 
for  the  Tilden  Trust,  368-9;  act  to 
incorporate,  432. 

TIMES,"  New  York,  how  it  came  to 
claim  the  election  of  Hayes,  II.,  9. 

TREMAIN,  Judge,  defended  by  O'Conor, 
L,  206. 

TRUMBULL,  Lyman,  urging  renomina 
tion  of  Tilden  for  President  in  1884, 
II.,  405. 

TUCKER,  J.  R.,  urges  the  renomination 
of  Tilden  for  President  in  188i,  II.,  409. 

TWEED,  William  M.,  I.,  183. 

TWEED  ring,  Tilden's  struggle  with,  L, 
182  origin  of.  Appendix  A,  402. 

TYLDEN,  Sir  John  Maxwell,  L,  4,  10,- 
supplement,  317. 

TYLDEV,  Richard,  I.,  10,  supplement,  317. 

TYLDEN,  Sir  Richard,  of  Milsted,  in 
Kent,  L,  4;  his  ancestors,  4,  10,  sup 
plement. 

TYLDEN,  William,  of  Wormshill,  L,  4, 
supplement,  317. 

TYLDEN'S  family,  one  of,  went  to  Amer 
ica  with  the  Pilgrims,  supplement,  L, 
317. 

TTNITED  STATES  Bank,  Tilden's  arti- 
^      clo  against  signed   "  George   Clin 
ton,"  L,  29. 

UNIVERSITY  of  New  York,  Tilden  enters, 
I.,  49. 

AN  BRUNT,  Justice,  votes  for  de 
claring  Tilden  Trust  invalid,  II., 
362;  first  appointed  to  sit  in  Supreme 
Court  by  Governor  Tilden,  362,  note. 

VAN  BUREN,  John,  I.,  11. 

VAN  BUREN",  Martin,  origin  of  his  in 
timacy  with  Tilden,  L,  27  ;  his  will,  28 ; 
a  proposal  to  secure  the  support  of 
the  Anti-Masons  for  Van  Burcn,  50; 
elected  President,  54;  inauguration 
message,  56;  Tilden's  defence  of,  56; 
writes  the  defence  of  the  Democratic 
members  of  the  Legislature  of  1818, 
118;  renominated  for  the  presidency 
by  the  Free-Soil  party,  125;  his  story 
of  John  Randolph,  141 ;  his  reception 
in  England,  II.,  127. 

VAN  COTT,  Joshua,  Municipal-Reform 
Commission,  L,  266. 

VANDERPOOL,  A.  J.,  II.,  239;  proposi 
tion  for  settling  income- tax  suit  made 
to,  245. 

VANDERPOOL,  Green,  &  Cuming,  letter- 
to  Edwards  Pierrepont,  II.,  2o7. 

VANN,  Judge,  votes  for  holding  Tildea 
Trust  valid,  II.,  364. 


442 


INDEX 


"  VIKING,"  Tilden's  yacht,  II.,  286. 
VISITING  statesmen  at  New  Orleaus,  II., 

35. 
VOLTAIRE,  I.,  I. 

•\1TALKER,  Stephen  J.,  trustee  of 
Tildcn  Trust,  II.,  361. 

WATTERSON,  Henry,  temporary  chair 
man  of  St.  Louis  Democratic  con 
vention,  I.,  331;  Tilden's  view  of 
dealing  with  the  Electoral  Commis 
sion  scheme,  II.,  81 ;  Tilden's  letter  to, 
about  the  patronage,  311. 

WEBSTER,  Daniel,  attitude  of  Anti- 
Masons  toward,  I.,  50. 

WEED,  Smith,  II.,  220. 

WELLINGTON,  Duke  of,  entertains 
General  Grant,  II.,  128. 

WELLS,  J.  Madison,  member  of  Louisi 
ana  Returning  Board,  II.,  39;  charges 
preferred  against,  by  General  Sheridan, 
39,  note. 

WHISKEY  frauds,  II.,  2. 

WHITTIER,  Elegy  of,  on  Tilden,  II.,  359. 

WILL  and  testament  of  Tildcn,  II.,  359, 
Appendix  D,  420. 


WOODFORD.  General,  II.,  112;  letter  to 
Green  B.  Raum,  244,  25  i. 

WUOLSEF,  Theodore,  President  of  the 
Fifth-avenue  conference,  I.,  297. 

WRIGHT,  Silas,  elected  to  the  House  of 
Representatives,  I.,  35;  advocated 
the  tariff  of  1828,  ib.  ;  his  apology  for 
it,  36 ;  favors  a  tariff  for  revenue  with 
incidental  protection,  ib.  •  reports  the 
Independent  Treasury  Bill,  68;  letter 
to  Elam  Tilden,  77;  reasons  for  de 
clining  to  be  run  for  governor,  101 ;  can 
didate  for  governor,  107,  109;  hostility 
of  the  Polk  administration  to,  116; 
renominated  for  governor  and  de 
feated,  ib.;  his  death,  117. 

VALE  College,  Tilden  enters,  I.,  46; 
•*•     confers  decree  of  Doctor  of  Laws 

on  Tilden,  273. 
YOUNGLOVE,  Dr.  Moses,  married  Polly 

Patterson,  I.,  9;  taken  prisoner  at  the 

Battle  of  Oriskany,  ib. ;  account  of  his 

hardships,  10,  14. 
YOUXGLOVE.   Mrs.  Dr.,   description  of, 

I.,  15. 


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